Forward Deployed Engineer (US/Defense)

ContextFab GmbH; Northern (KY); On-site; USD 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Early equity

Job summary

ContextFab GmbH is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to work directly with customers from discovery through deployment. You will understand factory operations, identify high-value problems, and deploy agents that deliver measurable operational impact.

You will translate manufacturing needs into custom capabilities and lead workshops with operations, IT and engineering teams. Travel to customer sites will be required.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, Engineering, AI/ML, Data Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Strong communication skills and comfort operating independently in a fast-moving environment.
• This role is dedicated to deployments of context/fab in U.S. defense, aerospace and ITAR-controlled manufacturing environments.

Responsibilities

• Work directly with customers to understand their factories, workflows, systems and most valuable operational problems.
• Lead technical discovery, workshops and use-case definition with customer teams.
• Translate manufacturing problems into agents and capabilities for measurable success.
• Build, configure and deploy agents and workflows for production, quality, maintenance, logistics and engineering use cases.
• Connect customer data across PLCs and industrial protocols and systems.

Skills

Python

APIs

Databases

Data integration

Manufacturing domain

Communication

Customer engagement

Willing to travel

English fluency

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS/Engineering/AI/DS

Tools

OPC UA

MQTT

SCADA

ERP/CMMS

Job description

We're building context/fab, a venture-backed industrial AI startup building the agentic operating system for the future of manufacturing.

Our vision is the self-aware factory: factories that understand their own equipment, processes, data and operational context, and where AI agents can reason across this context to solve real manufacturing problems.

context/fab automatically connects fragmented industrial data and knowledge into a Context Graph, providing the foundation for agents across production, quality, maintenance, logistics and engineering.

We work directly with large industrial enterprises and leading SMEs, bringing this technology into real factories and operational workflows.

As our Forward Deployed Engineer, you'll work directly with customers from discovery through deployment and expansion. You'll understand how their factories operate, identify high-value problems, connect their systems and data to context/fab, and configure and deploy agents that deliver measurable operational impact.

What You'll Do

• Work directly with customers to understand their factories, workflows, systems and most valuable operational problems
• Lead technical discovery, workshops and use-case definition together with customer operations, engineering and IT teams
• Translate manufacturing problems into agents and custom capabilities for the customer and measurable success criteria
• Build, configure and deploy agents and workflows for production, quality, maintenance, logistics and engineering use cases
• Connect customer data across PLCs and industrial protocols such as OPC UA and MQTT, SCADA and historians, MES, ERP, QMS, CMMS, databases, APIs and technical documentation
• Use our automated Context Graph capabilities to contextualize factory data and validate the resulting representation together with customer experts
• Work closely with customers during pilots and rollouts, troubleshoot issues and continuously improve the solution
• Identify recurring customer needs and translate field learnings into clear requirements for our product and engineering teams
• Support technical sales and solution discovery for new customers

What Makes You a Great Fit

• Strong technical foundation across software, data or industrial systems
• Product-minded and excited about discovering and deeply understanding customer problems
• Comfortable working directly with engineers, plant teams, operations leaders and enterprise IT
• Experience with Python, APIs, databases or data integration
• Experience with manufacturing, industrial systems, AI agents or enterprise software is a strong plus
• Entrepreneurial mindset with a strong bias for ownership, urgency and building from zero to one in ambiguous environments
• Naturally driven to take end-to-end responsibility for customer outcomes and to operate with the autonomy of a founder inside a customer context
• Willing to travel regularly to customer sites
• Fluent in English; German or other European languages are a plus

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, Engineering, AI/ML, Data Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
• Strong communication skills and comfort operating independently in a fast-moving environment
• This role is dedicated to deployments of context/fab in U.S. defense, aerospace and ITAR-controlled manufacturing environments. It requires eligibility for a U.S. security clearance and the ability to meet ITAR and customer facility-access requirements. These requirements apply only to this role, not our general FDE openings.

Why Join Us

• Build the agentic operating system for the self-aware factory
• Work directly with large industrial enterprises and leading SMEs on real production problems
• Shape both our product and how it is deployed from an early stage
• Work directly with the founders and a highly technical team
• Help build deep-tech capabilities that keep manufacturing competitive in Europe
• Competitive salary and meaningful early equity
• Grow faster than almost anywhere else: experience a 10-year career in 2 years