Lead Software Engineer - ( Forward Deployed Engineer ) Santa Clara, CA

Nutanix; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Direct impact on large enterprise customers

Opportunity to solve complex technical problems

Significant ownership as a technical leader

Job summary

Nutanix is seeking a Lead Engineer in Santa Clara, CA, to be a senior technical leader focused on delivering scalable solutions for enterprise customers. You will be responsible for solving high-impact technical challenges and mentoring engineers across teams.

This role requires strong backend engineering skills, experience with distributed systems, and the ability to handle complex customer escalations. Join us to play a significant part in shaping our platform's future!

Qualifications

• Ownership of production systems at scale.
• Proven experience handling enterprise customer escalations.
• Deep understanding of system design and microservices architectures.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement scalable solutions for enterprise customers.
• Act as the primary technical escalation point for critical issues.
• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers and lead design reviews.

Skills

Backend engineering experience

Distributed systems

Mentorship skills

Strong communication skills

Education

7+ years of professional software engineering experience

Tools

Java

Python

Scala

React

Angular

Job description

About Eightfold

Eightfold is a global leader in AI‑native enterprise talent platform, trusted by the world’s largest & most respected Fortune 500 organizations. Our platform operates at scale across Azure and AWS, deployed in multiple regions globally, including IL4‑compliant environments for US Government, supporting users in 100+ countries and 30+ languages.

About the Role

We are looking for a Lead Engineer to serve as a senior technical leader at the intersection of product engineering, platform architecture, and enterprise customer success. In this role, you will own the most complex and high‑impact customer‑facing technical challenges across the Eightfold platform. You will design and implement scalable solutions for enterprise customers, lead technical escalations, influence product direction based on real‑world customer needs, and mentor engineers across teams. The position involves deep engagement with customer issues and focuses on engineering durable solutions, improving platform capabilities, and eliminating entire classes of problems, rather than providing ongoing ticket‑based support.

Responsibilities

• Customer‑Driven Product & Platform Development
  • Design and build customer‑facing enhancements, integrations, and custom workflows that scale across the platform.
  • Translate enterprise customer requirements into durable, reusable platform capabilities.
  • Influence product and engineering roadmaps by identifying patterns across customer needs.
  • Balance short‑term customer demands with long‑term platform health and architectural integrity.
• Technical Leadership & Ownership
  • Own end‑to‑end design and implementation of complex, cross‑cutting features spanning multiple services or product areas.
  • Drive architectural decisions focused on reliability, performance, extensibility, and maintainability.
  • Partner closely with Product Management, Platform Engineering, and Applied AI teams to deliver solutions aligned with customer outcomes.
• Enterprise Customer Engineering & Escalations
  • Act as the primary technical escalation point for the most critical enterprise customer issues across all Eightfold products.
  • Troubleshoot and resolve complex production issues involving distributed systems, large‑scale data, and integrations.
  • Work directly with Customer Success, Solutions Engineering, and Support teams to deliver timely, high‑quality resolutions.
  • Lead root cause analysis and drive systemic fixes to prevent recurrence.
• Mentorship & Engineering Excellence
  • Mentor and guide junior and mid‑level engineers, especially within customer engineering and escalation workflows.
  • Lead design and code reviews with an emphasis on scalability and operational readiness.
  • Establish best practices for observability, debugging, testing, and incident response in customer‑facing systems.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, including ownership of production systems at scale.
• Strong backend engineering experience (e.g., Java, Python, Scala, or similar) with distributed systems.
• Proven experience handling enterprise customer escalations and complex production issues.
• Deep understanding of system design, APIs, data pipelines, and service‑oriented or microservices architectures.
• Ability to operate effectively in ambiguous environments with competing customer and platform priorities.
• Demonstrated experience mentoring engineers and influencing technical direction across teams.
• Hands‑on experience building frontend applications with React, Angular, and related UI frameworks.
• Strong communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in Customer Engineering and/or Solutions Engineering within a SaaS company.
• Familiarity with enterprise integrations, data ingestion pipelines, and customer‑specific configurations.
• Experience working with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and production monitoring tools.
• Exposure to AI/ML‑enabled platforms or data‑intensive products.

Benefits

• Direct impact on some of the world’s largest enterprise customers.
• Opportunity to solve highly complex, real‑world technical problems with visibility across the entire platform.
• Significant ownership and influence as a technical leader.
• Collaboration with customers, product leaders, and engineering teams to shape the future of the Eightfold platform.

EEO Statement

Eightfold.ai provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, or disability.