Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)

Databricks Inc.; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading data and AI company is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to work directly with strategic customers, designing and delivering innovative fullstack applications on their platform. This role combines software engineering skills and customer interaction, focusing on solutions that integrate data and AI. Ideal candidates will have experience in application delivery and a strong collaborative mindset, along with the ability to engage with diverse stakeholders.

Benefits

Comprehensive benefits package

Qualifications

• Proven ability to design, build, and deploy production applications.
• Familiarity with AI APIs and ML/AI models.
• Strong collaboration skills with various stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and design decisions for custom applications.
• Develop applications that integrate data and AI.
• Deliver production-grade systems with customer focus.
• Work closely with customer teams to address challenges.
• Collaborate across teams to ensure seamless customer experiences.
• Contribute to best practices and frameworks for scalability.

Skills

Application Delivery

AI/ML Experience

Customer Impact

Collaboration & Communication

Learning Mindset

Job description

The Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) team is a highly specialized, customer-facing software engineering team at Databricks. We work with Databricks most strategic customers to design, build, and productionize first-of-their-kind data and AI solutions. This team is the right fit for you if you love working side‑by‑side with customers, collaborating with teammates, and pushing your curiosity across the latest trends in data, applications, and AI innovation.

Role Description

As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), you will embed directly with our most strategic customers to design and deliver custom fullstack applications and solutions on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform and other common software stacks. You will own the architecture, lead design decisions, and implement end-to-end systems spanning data engineering, AI, and application development.

This is a hands‑on, customer‑facing role for software engineers, developers, and builders who thrive at the intersection of technology and business impact. The ideal candidate combines engineering expertise with adaptability, curiosity, and a passion for solving complex problems that drive measurable outcomes.

Impact you will have

• Own the Architecture: Lead architecture and design decisions, ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, and aligned with both customer needs and Databricks best practices.
• Application Engineering: Design and develop applications spanning backend, frontend, and integrations, bringing data and AI to life for enterprise users leveraging the Databricks platform.
• Solution Delivery: Deliver production‑grade systems from data ingestion and transformation through ML/AI model integration to user‑facing applications and enablement.
• Customer Immersion: Embed with customer teams, engaging with stakeholders from technical ICs to executives to deeply understand challenges and deliver impact.
• Cross‑Functional Collaboration: Partner with Sales, Product, and Field Engineering to ensure a seamless customer journey from pre‑sales through post‑deployment.
• Reusable Assets & Scale: Contribute accelerators, frameworks, and best practices that scale impact across accounts and influence the Databricks product roadmap.

What we look for

• Application Delivery: Demonstrated ability to design, build, and deploy production applications that combine data pipelines, ML/AI models, and user‑facing interfaces.
• AI/ML Experience: Familiarity working with AI APIs such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Gemini into applications, and leveraging AI code generation tools to accelerate productivity.
• Customer Impact: Proven track record of delivering technical solutions in enterprise environments that drive measurable outcomes.
• Collaboration & Communication: Ability to engage across a broad stakeholder range, from engineers to C‑level executives, translating complex concepts into actionable solutions.
• Learning Mindset: Curiosity, adaptability, and eagerness to explore new technologies, domains, and customer challenges.
• Ability and interest to travel up to 50% as needed to client sites.

About Databricks

Databricks is the data and AI company. More than 10,000 organizations worldwide — including Comcast, Condé Nast, Grammarly, and over 50% of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform to unify and democratize data, analytics and AI. Databricks is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices around the globe and was founded by the original creators of Lakehouse, Apache Spark™, Delta Lake and MLflow. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Benefits

At Databricks, we strive to provide comprehensive benefits and perks that meet the needs of all of our employees. For specific details on the benefits offered in your region, please visit https://www.mybenefitsnow.com/databricks.

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

At Databricks, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive culture where everyone can excel. We take great care to ensure that our hiring practices are inclusive and meet equal employment opportunity standards. Individuals looking for employment at Databricks are considered without regard to age, color, disability, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio‑economic status, veteran status, and other protected characteristics.

Compliance

If access to export‑controlled technology or source code is required for performance of job duties, it is within Employer's discretion whether to apply for a U.S. government license for such positions, and Employer may decline to proceed with an applicant on this basis alone.