Sr Forward Deployed Engineer, Forward Deployment Engineering

Amazon Inc.; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Amazon Web Services (AWS) seeks a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to embed with enterprise customers, designing, building, deploying, and running AI-powered production systems alongside their engineering teams.

As an FDE, you own outcomes end-to-end, write production-grade software, and drive multi-service, multi-team engagements from prototype to enterprise-scale deployment, creating reusable architectures and patterns that scale the practice.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of non-internship professional software development experience.
• 5+ years programming in at least one programming language.
• 5+ years leading design or architecture of scalable systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical delivery across customer engagements. Own the technical strategy and execution for complex, multi-workstream customer AI programs.
• Architect and build production AI systems at scale. Design foundational architectures for enterprise AI systems.
• Own production excellence across workstreams. Define operational standards and production readiness criteria for AI systems.
• Scale the team's effectiveness. Define engineering patterns, participate in hiring, mentor junior FDEs.
• Accelerate customer transformation. Identify AI adoption opportunities and create reusable accelerators.

Skills

Non-internship software development

Programming experience in at least one

Design/architecture leadership

Job description

A Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) embeds directly inside a strategic enterprise customer to design, build, deploy, and run AI-powered production systems alongside the customer's engineering team. FDEs write production-grade software and own outcomes end-to-end, from prototype through enterprise-scale deployment combining the technical rigor of an AWS SDE with the urgency and ownership required to deliver measurable customer business outcomes. They create reusable architectures, patterns, and engineering mechanisms that scale the entire FDE practice.

Key job responsibilities

• Lead technical delivery across customer engagements. Own the technical strategy and execution for complex, multi-workstream customer AI programs. Make architecture decisions that span multiple services and organizational boundaries. Align technical approach with the customer's long-term technology strategy. Requires 30–50% travel.
• Architect and build production AI systems at scale. Design the foundational architectures — multi-agent orchestration, enterprise retrieval systems, decision intelligence platforms — for the most complex customer engagements. Drive clarity where neither the business problem nor technology approach is fully defined. Build production systems that handle enterprise-scale traffic and reliability requirements.
• Own production excellence across workstreams. Define operational standards, evaluation frameworks, and production readiness criteria for AI systems across your engagement scope. Establish mechanisms (testing strategies, observability standards, incident response playbooks) that ensure AI systems remain healthy. Drive operational improvements that raise the bar for the team.
• Scale the team's effectiveness. Define engineering patterns, contribute to the interview and hiring process, and mentor junior FDEs into independent contributors. Coach others on system design, customer engagement, and production operations. Drive engineering excellence standards within your scope.
• Accelerate customer transformation. Identify systemic opportunities to expand AI adoption across the customer organization. Create accelerators and reusable platforms that reduce time-to-value from months to weeks. Feed learnings back into AWS services and the FDE practice.

About the team

ABOUT AWS:

Diverse Experiences

Amazon values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the preferred qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying.

Why AWS

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. We pioneered cloud computing and never stopped innovating — that’s why customers from the most successful startups to Global 500 companies trust our robust suite of products and services to power their businesses.

Work/Life Balance

We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why we strive for flexibility as part of our working culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve in the cloud.

Inclusive Team Culture

AWS values curiosity and connection. Our employee-led and company-sponsored affinity groups promote inclusion and empower our people to take pride in what makes us unique. Our inclusion events foster stronger, more collaborative teams. Our continual innovation is fueled by the bold ideas, fresh perspectives, and passionate voices our teams bring to everything we do.

Mentorship and Career Growth

We’re continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth’s Best Employer. That’s why you’ll find endless knowledge-sharing, mentorship and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.

10047Basic Qualifications:

• 5+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
• 5+ years of programming with at least one software programming language experience
• 5+ years of leading design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience