Principal Forward Deployed Engineer

FinTech Collective, LLC; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Gen's Forward Deployed Engineering team is seeking a player-coach to lead the next phase: establishing repeatable delivery standards, governing AI-native engineering practices, owning high-stakes partner engagements, and partnering with Product and Engineering.

This role blends team leadership with hands-on engineering: shape strategy, drive key integrations across verticals, and mentor engineers while collaborating with partner teams and Solutions Engineering.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in integration or forward-deployed engineering, with leadership.
• Production-quality coding in Scala and/or Python; API experience.
• Deep REST/JSON API expertise including auth and versioning.
• Experience building reusable architecture and automation.
• Familiar with AI-native tooling and safe production use.

Responsibilities

• Own technical strategy for demand-side delivery across the partner portfolio.
• Develop SOPs and delivery practices to accelerate the team.
• Lead the most complex, new-vertical integrations end to end.
• Turn bespoke builds into reusable modules and runbooks.
• Architect AI-native engineering practices and automation pipelines.
• Mentor engineers through design and code reviews.
• Drive structured product/engineering feedback loops.
• Lead technical working sessions with partner teams.

Skills

Scala

Python

Node.js/TypeScript

REST/JSON APIs

AI-native workflows

System design

Mentoring / leadership

Job description

About Gen

Gen is a global company dedicated to powering Digital Freedom through its trusted consumer brands including Norton, Avast, LifeLock, MoneyLion and more. Our combined heritage is rooted in financial empowerment and cyber safety for the first digital generations, and today we deliver award-winning cybersecurity, online privacy, identity protection and financial wellness solutions to nearly 500 million users in more than 150 countries.

Together, we share a collective passion and vision to protect consumers and help them grow, manage and secure their digital and financial lives. We're always looking for smart, fearless and high-impact talent who see AI as a teammate - leveraging it to move faster and deliver meaningful results.

When you're part of Gen, you'll have the flexibility, tools and support to do your best work and grow your career - from flexible working options and time off to competitive pay, benefits and well-being programs.

At Gen, we are scrappy and relentlessly customer driven. We create room for healthy debate, experimentation and continuous learning, and we seek out people with different experiences, identities and ideas to join our team. You'll work with people who back each other, respect each other and understand that our differences are a competitive advantage.

If this sounds like you, we'd love you to be part of Gen.

About the Role

Engine's Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) function is its partner-embedded Engineering team, responsible for demand partner integrations and custom development across Engine's marketplace. Its north star is delivering high-quality code that accelerates marketplace revenue.

We're looking for a player-coach to help lead the team through its next phase: establishing repeatable delivery standards, governing AI-native engineering practices, owning the highest-stakes partner engagements, and building strong partnerships with internal Product and Engineering teams. This role combines team leadership with hands-on engineering. You'll help shape the FDE team's strategy and best practices, lead the integrations that matter most—including new verticals, non-standard partner APIs, and hosted experiences—and work closely with partner engineering teams, Backend and Frontend Engineering, Solutions Engineering, Product, and commercial stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• Own technical strategy for demand-side delivery across the partner portfolio, setting standards adopted across FDE and Solutions Engineering.

• Partner with your manager and cross-functional leaders to develop and implement standard operating procedures and delivery practices that help accelerate the team.

• Personally lead the most complex, ambiguous, or new-vertical integrations end to end.

• Turn bespoke builds into repeatable solutions, including shared modules, templates, and runbooks.

• Architect and govern AI-native engineering practices, including code-generation pipelines, mapping automation, test-scaffolding agents, and human-review gates that keep AI-assisted builds safe and production-ready.

• Mentor FDEs through design and code reviews, creating a feedback loop that raises the team's engineering standard.

• Drive structured Product and Engineering feedback loops that reduce future bespoke work and free team capacity for new workstreams.

• Lead technical working sessions with partner engineering teams, bringing experienced hands-on guidance to critical integrations and hosted experiences.

About You

Experience: 8+ years of experience, including time in a senior or staff-level integration, platform, or forward-deployed engineering role. People leadership or strong informal team leadership experience is preferred.

Skills:

• Write production-quality code in Scala and/or Python, with working comfort in Node.js/TypeScript for SDKs and tooling.

• Bring deep REST/JSON API expertise, including authentication, idempotency, schema evolution, versioning, monitoring, and incident response.

• Have a track record of building reusable architecture, tooling, or playbooks that scaled a team's output without proportional headcount growth.

• Use AI-native workflows and tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, or Copilot as first-class accelerants, while knowing when deterministic approaches are the right choice.

• Facilitate technical working sessions directly with partner engineering teams.

Personal Attributes:

• Recognize patterns and turn novel solutions into repeatable practices.

• Take ownership of complex, ambiguous work and balance strategic leadership with hands-on execution.

• Build trust and credibility across partner, Product, Engineering, Solutions Engineering, and commercial teams.

• Invest in colleagues' growth through thoughtful mentoring, design feedback, and code review.

What’s Next

After you submit your application, you can expect the following steps in the recruitment process:

• Online Technical Test

• TA Call

• Live Coding (Virtual)

• FinalInterview - Hiring Manager (Virtual or face-to-face)