Forward Deployed Engineer - Data Engineering & GenAI - US Citizenship Required

NAM Info Inc; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 162,000 - 198,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work schedule

Job summary

NAM Info Inc. is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer (Principal level) to work with customers, translate complex requirements into technical solutions, and deploy AI-driven data and software applications.

You will blend software engineering, data pipelines, and Generative AI to deliver end-to-end solutions across diverse engagements. The role requires hands-on implementation, API integration, and rapid prototyping using LLMs and enterprise data, with a hybrid in-office schedule 2–3 days per week

Qualifications

• Strong hands-on software engineering
• Strong data engineering fundamentals including ETL/ELT and data pipelines
• Experience designing and integrating REST APIs and backend services
• Hands-on experience building applications using LLMs / Generative AI
• Experience building AI agents, RAG systems, tool-calling workflows, or AI workflow automation
• Ability to turn ambiguous customer requirements into working technical solutions
• Strong debugging and problem-solving across apps, APIs, infrastructure, and data
• Excellent written and verbal communication and customer-facing skills
• Based in the Washington, DC metro area and able to work in a hybrid setup

Responsibilities

• Translate ambiguous customer requirements into concrete technical architectures and working solutions
• Build and deploy end-to-end customer-facing solutions
• Prototype quickly using LLMs and enterprise data
• Operate across customers, data, software engineering, and AI components
• Own technical delivery from discovery through production adoption
• Design and implement ETL/ELT pipelines and data integrations
• Develop GenAI-powered applications that automate complex workflows
• Ensure security, reliability, and maintainability in production

Skills

Software engineering

Data engineering

REST APIs

LLMs / Generative AI

AI agents / RAG

Debugging / problem solving

Customer facing

Hybrid work

Tools

Snowflake

Databricks

Spark

Kafka

Airflow

dbt

Job description

Work Model: Hybrid — expected in the office/customer sites 2–3 days per week

Employment Type: Full Time/Contract

Experience Level: Principal (8–14 years)

Salary/Rate: $180K or $110/hr on C2C or W2

About the Role

• We are looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) who combines strong software and data engineering fundamentals with hands‑on Generative AI expertise and exceptional customer-facing skills.
• This is not a traditional implementation, solutions consulting, or data engineering role. The FDE will work directly with customers to understand complex and often ambiguous operational problems, translate them into technical solutions, and then build and deploy those solutions hands‑on.
• You will operate at the intersection of customers, data, software engineering, and Generative AI. One engagement might require building an API integration and ETL pipeline; another might involve creating an AI agent that automates an operational workflow; another could require rapidly prototyping a customer-specific application using LLMs and enterprise data.
• We are looking for someone who is comfortable moving between a customer conversation, architecture whiteboard, IDE, data pipeline, and production deployment.

What We’re Looking For

Must Have

• Strong hands‑on software engineering experience.
• Strong data engineering fundamentals, including ETL/ELT, data modeling, schema mapping, and data pipelines.
• Experience designing and integrating REST APIs and backend services.
• Hands‑on experience building applications using LLMs / Generative AI.
• Experience building at least some of: AI agents, RAG systems, tool‑calling workflows, LLM‑powered applications, or AI workflow automation.
• Ability to take an ambiguous customer requirement and independently turn it into a working technical solution.
• Strong debugging and problem‑solving skills across applications, APIs, infrastructure, and data.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to work directly with customers and senior stakeholders.
• Ability to operate effectively in fast‑moving environments with incomplete requirements.
• Based in or willing to work from the Washington, DC metro area.
• Ability to work in a hybrid environment with office/customer‑site presence at least 2–3 days per week.

Strongly Preferred

• Experience working as a Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Engineer, Solutions Architect, Technical Consultant, or customer‑facing Software/Data Engineer.
• Experience supporting the federal government, defense, intelligence, national security, or other mission‑critical environments.
• Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Experience with modern data platforms and technologies such as Snowflake, Databricks, Spark, Kafka, Airflow, dbt, or equivalent technologies.
• Experience with vector databases, embeddings, retrieval systems, and modern LLM application frameworks.
• Experience deploying AI applications into production environments.
• Experience designing human‑in‑the‑loop workflows and AI evaluation systems.
• Familiarity with enterprise security, authentication, authorization, and data‑governance requirements.
• Demonstrated ability to develop reusable technical approaches and influence engineering or product strategy.
• Work directly with customers to understand business objectives, operational workflows, technical environments, and pain points.
• Translate ambiguous customer requirements into concrete technical architectures and working solutions.
• Rapidly prototype, build, test, deploy, and iterate on customer‑facing solutions.
• Own technical delivery from initial discovery through implementation and production adoption.
• Make pragmatic engineering decisions balancing speed, scalability, security, maintainability, and customer impact.
• Identify technical risks, data‑quality issues, integration constraints, and implementation trade‑offs early.
• Write production‑quality code, primarily using languages such as Python and/or TypeScript.
• Design and develop APIs and backend services.
• Integrate applications with databases, APIs, cloud services, AI models, and customer systems.
• Build lightweight applications and interfaces where needed to deliver an end‑to‑end customer solution.
• Apply sound software engineering practices around testing, version control, CI/CD, monitoring, security, and documentation.
• Design and implement ETL/ELT pipelines for ingestion, extraction, transformation, and delivery workflows.
• Execute bulk data processing and deliver data products in formats including Parquet, CSV, JSON, and related formats.
• Build, configure, test, and maintain REST/API integrations for customer and internal use cases.
• Design and build GenAI‑powered applications that automate complex customer workflows.
• Build LLM‑based agents and agentic workflows capable of reasoning across enterprise data, APIs, and tools.
• Develop RAG pipelines connecting LLMs with structured and unstructured enterprise data.
• Implement tool/function calling, structured outputs, workflow orchestration, and multi‑step AI systems.
• Build evaluation frameworks and feedback loops to measure and improve AI application quality.