At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead deployment optimisation for AI workloads and solve complex infrastructure challenges.
- Company: Join VAST Data, a leader in AI data platform technology.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, travel opportunities, and a chance to work with cutting-edge tech.
- Other info: Dynamic environment with continuous learning and career growth opportunities.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on the future of AI infrastructure alongside a world-class team.
- Qualifications: 5+ years in a technical role with strong coding and networking skills.
The predicted salary is between 135000 - 165000 $ per year.
- Forward Deployed Engineer
- Lead deployment optimization for a large customer to ensure scalable AI workloads
About The Role
Forward Deployed Engineer
VAST Data is the data platform company for the AI era.
We are building the enterprise software infrastructure to capture, catalog, refine, enrich, and protect massive datasets and make them available for real-time data analysis and AI training and inference.
Designed from the ground up to make AI simple to deploy and manage, VAST takes the cost and complexity out of deploying enterprise and AI infrastructure across data center, edge, and cloud.
As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), you are a core member of our engineering team embedded directly within our most strategic, large-scale customer environments.
You will work side-by-side with customer architects, operators, and developers to deeply understand their unique scale challenges, solve complex infrastructure issues together, and translate real-world requirements into core product improvements.
As the face of VAST Engineering on the ground, you own the technical success of strategic customer deployments from design through production operation.
- What a Day in the Life Looks Like
- Collaborate Globally: Start your day syncing with other members of the engineering team to track hotfixes, review roadmap updates, and pull down and test new builds.
- Co-Engineer
Solutions: Collaborate side-by-side with the customer's technical team to optimize infrastructure throughput, debug complex issues, and develop solutions for their largest workloads.
- Drive
- Product
Development: Weave real-world operational insights directly into the VAST development loop.
Take the complex challenges you solve with customer engineers and distill them into precise, executable technical requirements for our core development teams to deliver.
- Write
Code: Develop custom API endpoints, create automation tools, or write scripts to unblock critical customer workflows.
Address code review feedback from internal engineering teams on more complex changes.
- Advocate: Act as a fierce internal advocate for your customer, ensuring their long-term technical needs are prioritized in the VAST product roadmap.
Requirements
- Technical Expertise: Deep, foundational knowledge of distributed systems, high-performance file systems, storage protocols, and performance tuning.
- Advanced Networking: Strong understanding of high-throughput fabrics, including Infini Band, Ro CE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet), and 100Gb E+ networking.
- Linux Internals: Advanced knowledge of Linux systems architecture, memory management, and kernel mechanics.
- Hands-on Development: Proficiency in Python and C/C++, with the ability to read, debug, and safely contribute to a complex, enterprise-grade codebase.
- System Operations (Plus): Experience operating large-scale AI training environments or high-performance compute (HPC) clusters is highly desirable.
- Modern AI Infrastructure (Plus): Experience working with containerized environments (Docker, Kubernetes) and modern AI/ML frameworks (Py Torch, Tensor Flow) is highly desired.
- Professional Experience & Skills: 5+ years in a highly technical, engineering role such as Forward Deployed Engineer, Resident Engineer, Systems Software Engineer, or Senior Systems Engineer with a track record of customer-facing collaboration.
- Composure under Pressure: A steady, analytical mindset when navigating complex technical challenges or high-stakes issues, with a focus on driving swift, logical resolutions.
- Diplomacy & Translation: Exceptional communication skills—the ability to explain complex distributed systems limitations to a customer executive, and equally comfortable explaining a business deadline to a core developer.
- Organizational
Mastery: Highly organized and self-directed, with a proven ability to manage customer expectations and know when to set strategic boundaries to protect the product roadmap.
- Continuous
- Learning
Mindset: Possess an insatiable curiosity and a desire to master new technologies.
You are someone who proactively dives into unfamiliar technical concepts and comes up to speed rapidly in a fast-evolving ecosystem.
- Travel
- Ability to travel or work on-site at customer locations as required (up to 25% travel).
Why Join VAST?
You will be working at the absolute cutting edge of the AI revolution.
This isn't a role where you sit on the sidelines—you will have a direct, measurable impact on the infrastructure powering the future of technology, working alongside a world-class team that is redefining the data stack.
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Forward Deployed Engineer Software employer: Frontdoor Defense
At Shield AI, we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer, offering a dynamic work culture that fosters innovation and collaboration in the heart of Melbourne. Our commitment to employee growth is evident through hands-on leadership opportunities in cutting-edge defence technology, while our inclusive environment ensures that every team member feels valued and empowered. Join us to make a meaningful impact in the field of autonomous systems, where your contributions will directly support our mission to protect service members and civilians alike.
