ServiceNow Lead Forward Deployed Engineer

Relha LLC; Arlington (VA); On-site; USD 189,000 - 373,000; Full time

Job summary

Deloitte is seeking a ServiceNow Lead Forward Deployed Engineer to lead pods delivering GenAI solutions for strategic clients. You will set technical direction, drive delivery, and maintain hands-on credibility while coordinating with client executives.

You’ll guide multi-pod engagements, enforce standards, and mentor engineers in a hybrid onshore/offshore delivery model leveraging cloud platforms.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in CS, data science, or engineering.
• 7+ years in software, data, or analytics engineering.
• 5+ years of hands-on ServiceNow experience.
• 1+ years building GenAI/LLM-powered solutions.
• Active ServiceNow certifications listed in posting.

Responsibilities

• Lead forward-deployed engineering pods with onshore/offshore teams.
• Architect and oversee GenAI solution delivery and integration.
• Define metrics, governance, and phased production plans.
• Mentor junior engineers and ensure code quality.
• Review production-quality code and CI/CD practices.

Skills

GenAI solutions

LLMOps

Leadership

Client engagement

ServiceNow

Cloud platforms

Education

Bachelor's degree

CS/Engineering background

Tools

ServiceNow

AWS

Azure

GCP

Job description

ServiceNow Lead Forward Deployed Engineer

At Deloitte, Forward Deployed Engineers (FDE) don’t just build AI solutions, they help clients turn AI ambition into enterprise-scale impact, pairing leading class engineering with pod-based delivery and vertical expertise. If you thrive at the intersection of product, engineering, problem-solving, and client impact, this role puts you at the forefront of AI transformations.

As a ServiceNow Lead Forward Deployed Engineer, you will serve as the senior practitioner-leader embedded directly with our most strategic clients, leading forward-deployed engineering pods that develop and deploy GenAI solutions into production for Deloitte’s most strategic clients. You’ll set technical direction, remove delivery blockers, and stay hands-on, designing, reviewing, and debugging systems with the team. You’ll translate engineering trade-offs into clear decisions for client leaders when needed. Your ability to influence decisions at the C-suite level, while maintaining hands-on technical credibility, is what sets you apart. Pods under your leadership may be deployed onshore with clients or in hybrid onshore/offshore configurations, leveraging Deloitte's global delivery capability to maximize speed and scale.

Client Engagement

Serve as the senior client-facing presence, building trusted advisor relationships as the senior engineering partner for client product, data, and platform leaders.

Lead executive-level discovery, define success metrics (quality, latency, cost, adoption, risk), and a phased plan from prototype to production and scaling.

Navigate organizational complexity and influence to align executive sponsors, information technology leadership, and business owners around a shared vision.

Represent Deloitte's FDE capability in client pursuits, executive briefings, and platform partner engagements, contributing to pipeline development and deal shaping.

Cross-Functional Pod Leadership & Program Governance

Lead FDE pods of 2-5 onshore-anchored and offshore-supported engineers, owning execution, resource management, escalations, and overall delivery health.

Enforce delivery standards across the pod, including sprint cadences, stakeholder communication plans, risk management, and quality gates.

Coordinate multi-pod or multi-workstream engagements, ensuring reliable architecture and a consistent client experience.

Mentor and develop junior FDEs.

GenAI Solution Development

Architect and oversee delivery of LLM-enabled applications, including copilots, agentic workflows, assistants, and knowledge search experiences using one or more enterprise AI platforms.

Set direction for prompt engineering, tool-use patterns, and human-in-the-loop controls.

Govern end-to-end retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipeline design, including ingestion, chunking, embedding, vector retrieval, and hybrid search, ensuring production-grade quality and scalability.

Define evaluation frameworks covering quality, hallucination risk, safety, latency, cost, and governance; ensure the pod meets agreed engineering quality bars to these standards.

Engineering & Data Foundations

Review and contribute to production-quality code.

Guide architecture of data pipelines powering GenAI use cases.

Enforce strong data management, testing, continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD), logging, versioning, and documentation practices.

Bring deep familiarity with cloud environments, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and/or Google Cloud.

The team

Deloitte’s Government & Public Services (GPS) practice—our people, ideas, technology, and outcomes—is designed for impact. Serving federal, state, and local government clients as well as public higher education institutions, our team of professionals brings fresh perspective to help clients anticipate disruption, reimagine the possible, and fulfill their mission promise.

Our ServiceNow offering designs, implements, and delivers strategies and technologies to increase the efficiency and value delivery of the enterprise information technology function.

Qualifications

Required:

Bachelor's degree (or equivalent) in Computer Science, Data Science, or Engineering.

7+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, data science, or analytics engineering.

5+ years of experience with the ServiceNow platform.

1+ years of hands-on experience building and deploying GenAI/LLM-powered solutions in client or production environments.

Active ServiceNow Systems Administrator certification.

Active ServiceNow Application Developer certification.

Active ServiceNow ITSM Implementation Specialist certification (CIS-ITSM).

Active ServiceNow Technical Architect certification.

1+ years of experience leading project workstreams or engagements and translating business problems into AI solutions.

1+ years of experience building reliable, maintainable, and well-documented code.

Ability to travel 50%, on average, based on the work you do and the clients and industries/sectors you serve.

Ability to obtain and maintain a US government security clearance.

Preferred:

ITIL v3.0 or v4.0 Foundation Certification.

Active ServiceNow Master Architect Certification.

Experience with cloud environments, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and/or Google Cloud, and common platform services including storage, compute, identity and access management (IAM), and networking.

Experience working directly alongside client technical teams and program stakeholders in fast-paced, ambiguous delivery environments.

Experience with Spark, Airflow/dbt, streaming, data modeling, feature engineering, experimentation, or model evaluation.

Experience with machine learning operations (MLOps) or large language model operations (LLMOps), including evaluation frameworks, model monitoring, and prompt management.

Experience integrating LLM solutions with enterprise systems via application programming interfaces (APIs), microservices, or event-driven architectures.

Experience operating within hybrid onshore/offshore teams.

Familiarity with security, privacy, and compliance considerations.

The wage range for this role takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs. The disclosed range estimate has not been adjusted for the applicable geographic differential associated with the location at which the position may be filled. At Deloitte, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is $189,200 to $372,900.

You may also be eligible to participate in a discretionary annual incentive program, subject to the rules governing the program, whereby an award, if any, depends on various factors, including, without limitation, individual and organizational performance.

Deloitte is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. If you require a reasonable accommodation to participate in the recruiting process, please direct your inquiries to the Global Call Center (GCC) at [emailprotected] .

Recruiting tips

From developing a stand out resume to putting your best foot forward in the interview, we want you to feel prepared and confident as you explore opportunities at Deloitte. Check out recruiting tips from Deloitte recruiters.

At Deloitte, we know that great people make a great organization. We value our people and offer employees a broad range of benefits. Learn more about what working at Deloitte can mean for you.

Our people and culture

Our inclusive culture empowers our people to be who they are, contribute their unique perspectives, and make a difference individually and collectively. It enables us to leverage different ways of thinking, ideas, and perspectives, and bring more creativity and innovation to help solve our clients' most complex challenges. This makes Deloitte one of the most rewarding places to work.

Our purpose

Deloitte’s purpose is to make an impact that matters for our people, clients, and communities. At Deloitte, purpose is synonymous with how we work every day. It defines who we are. Our purpose comes through in our work with clients that enables impact and value in their organizations, as well as through our own investments, commitments, and actions across areas that help drive positive outcomes for our communities. Learn more.

From entry-level employees to senior leaders, we believe there’s always room to learn. We offer opportunities to build new skills, take on leadership opportunities and connect and grow through mentorship. From on-the-job learning experiences to formal development programs, our professionals have a variety of opportunities to continue to grow throughout their career.

As used in this posting, ""Deloitte"" means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see https://www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability or protected veteran status, or any other legally protected basis, in accordance with applicable law.