Forward Deployed Engineer

Zendesk Singapore PTE (Singapore); Singapore; On-site; SGD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Zendesk Singapore PTE (Singapore) is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to lead AI/LLM-powered customer solutions for enterprise deployments. You will design, build, and rollout production-grade integrations and ensure successful operational handoff with customers.

You’ll travel up to 50% to work onsite with clients, collaborate with Sales Engineering and product teams, and translate customer learnings into roadmap improvements while maintaining engineering rigor and quality.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in production software engineering.
• Proficient in Python and TypeScript; backend in Java/Ruby/Go preferred.
• Hands-on LLM deployment experience (RAG, vector stores, eval).
• Cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) and container deployments like Docker/Kubernetes.
• Willingness to travel up to 50% to work onsite with customers.
• Strong engineering fundamentals and focus on quality.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end technical delivery of AI agent and LLM-powered solutions.
• Build production-grade integrations and connectors for Zendesk AI workflows.
• Resolve escalated blockers across data, infra, and model behavior.
• Collaborate with Sales Engineering and product teams to map systems and patterns.
• Translate customer learnings into product feedback and roadmap items.

Skills

Python

JavaScript/TypeScript

LLM deployment

RAG

Docker

Kubernetes

Cloud computing

Full-stack React/TS

REST/GraphQL

Communication

Tools

LangChain

LlamaIndex

Haystack

Vector stores

Job description

Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) – AI & Solutions

Join us at Zendesk, where we're on a mission to power exceptional service for every person on the planet by building products rooted in AI, automation, and intelligent customer experiences.

Responsibilities

• Lead end‑to‑end technical delivery of AI agent and LLM‑powered solutions—including discovery, scoping, system design, prototype, production rollout, and operational handoff.
• Build production‑grade integrations and custom connectors (APIs, data pipelines, RAG systems) to surface high‑quality signals into Zendesk AI workflows.
• Investigate and resolve escalated technical blockers across data, infrastructure, and model behavior; act as the field’s final line of defense for complex issues.
• Collaborate closely with Sales Engineering and product teams to map undocumented systems, define integration patterns, and implement solutions.
• Translate customer learnings into product feedback and prioritized roadmap items; partner with Zendesk Product and Engineering to reduce future deployment friction.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience delivering production systems.
• Proficient in Python and JavaScript/TypeScript; experience with at least one backend language (Java, Ruby, or Go) preferred.
• Hands‑on experience deploying or integrating LLM‑based solutions in production (RAG, vector databases, model evaluation).
• Practical experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and containerized deployments (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Comfortable working onsite with customers and traveling up to 50% as required.
• Founder mindset: comfortable navigating ambiguity and delivering results without a predefined playbook.
• Engineering rigor: strong software engineering fundamentals and attention to quality.
• Full‑stack fluency across frontend (React/TypeScript) and backend (Python/Node/Java/Ruby) technologies, REST/GraphQL APIs, and cloud infrastructure.
• AI/LLM expertise: practical experience with LLMs, prompt engineering, retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG), vector stores, and evaluation/guardrails for model safety and reliability.
• Systems integrator: proven ability to design secure data ingestion, ETL/data pipelines, and work with diverse data stores and message systems.
• Excellent communicator: able to present trade‑offs to executives and pair‑program with customer engineers; strong written runbooks and documentation skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior Forward Deployed Engineer, Professional Services, Solutions Engineering, or Technical Account Management experience delivering enterprise AI or SaaS deployments.
• Experience with specific LLM tooling and frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, Haystack, or similar.
• Familiarity with Zendesk products and APIs, or experience integrating customer support/contact‑center platforms.
• Background in observability and operationalization of ML/AI (monitoring, SLOs, cost controls, retraining pipelines).
• Experience with data governance, PII handling, and enterprise security/compliance constraints.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer.

If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here. Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre‑employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e‑mail to [e-mail] with your specific accommodation request.