Handbook: add Forward Deployed Engineer job description #5966

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title: "Forward Deployed Engineer"
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# Forward Deployed Engineer

## Job Description

We’re hiring an experienced forward deployed engineer to work across the full customer lifecycle, from pre-sales discovery and demos to hands-on customer delivery and long-term solution expansion. This is a senior, customer-facing role within our go-to-market organization, requiring strong domain expertise in industrial automation and the ability to build and deploy working solutions for enterprise customers.

You’ll work directly with customer teams in a forward deployed capacity, turning operational needs into solutions that deliver measurable value. You’ll also identify opportunities to expand across use cases and sites, and bring practical insights from customer deployments back to Product and Engineering.

You’ll be a key technical advisor, hands-on delivery partner, and trusted collaborator to both prospective and existing customers.


### Pre-Sales Support

* Partner with Account Executives during discovery to understand customer goals and technical environments
* Deliver tailored demos, solution architecture walkthroughs, and lead technical proof-of-concepts (PoCs)
* Help prospects align FlowFuse to their broader industrial and digital transformation goals
* Collaborate on pricing proposals and technical responses to RFPs and security reviews

### Forward Deployed Customer Delivery

* Work alongside customer operations, IT, and OT teams to define a focused use case, delivery scope, milestones, and measurable success criteria
* Build and deploy solutions using FlowFuse and Node-RED, connecting industrial data and enterprise systems and developing workflows, integrations, and custom logic where needed
* Carry successful demos and proofs of concept into production use, working with customers to test functionality, validate operational results, and meet security and reliability requirements
* Take ownership of technical delivery within the agreed scope, communicate progress and blockers, and align changes with the customer and Account Executive
* Document solution design, configuration, and custom development; provide training and agree ongoing ownership and support responsibilities with customer teams

### Customer Success and Expansion

* Guide technical onboarding and help customer teams adopt and extend the solutions delivered
* Partner with customers to assess results, resolve blockers, and optimize solution design
* Actively explore and surface additional use cases within the customer organization
* Facilitate roadmap alignment and strategic planning discussions with technical champions
* Deliver ongoing best practices, architecture reviews, and training to ensure long-term success

### Partnership with Product and Engineering

* Work closely with Product and Engineering to share recurring customer needs, deployment lessons, and reusable components developed in the field
* Help evaluate what should become a supported product capability, a repeatable solution, or customer-specific development, with Product owning roadmap priorities and Engineering guiding technical standards

## Skills

### What We’re Looking For

* 5+ years in forward deployed engineering, sales engineering, solution engineering, or industrial systems integration
* Deep industry expertise in MES, industrial automation, IIoT, smart manufacturing, or related fields
* Track record of identifying additional solution opportunities within enterprise accounts
* Hands-on experience building and deploying working solutions in customer environments, including integrations, workflow logic, testing, and troubleshooting
* Ability to translate an operational problem into a scoped delivery plan and work with customer teams through deployment, validation, and handover
* Experience with technologies such as Node-RED, MQTT, OPC-UA, SCADA systems, PLCs, or edge computing
* Strong communication skills - comfortable engaging engineers, architects, and executive stakeholders
* High degree of initiative and ability to manage customer relationships across the lifecycle
* Willingness to travel occasionally for key customer engagements

### Nice to Haves

* Hands-on experience deploying Node-RED at scale
* Familiarity with Unified Namespace or other modern industrial data architectures
* Experience with containerization, cloud (AWS/Azure), or Linux-based edge devices
* Multilingual skills (e.g., German, French, Spanish)

## 90 Day Plan

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## Hiring Plan

<!-- Confirm the interview stages, interviewers and assessment format with the hiring owner before publication. The supplied screening questions are retained below. -->

### Screening Questions

1. Can you briefly walk me through your recent experience in a customer-facing engineering or solutions role?
   * Goal: Confirm they have relevant experience in pre-sales or post-sales technical roles (e.g., forward deployed engineer, Sales Engineer, Customer Success Engineer).
1. Have you worked with industrial technologies like SCADA, PLCs, MQTT, or Node-RED?
   * Goal: Confirm basic exposure to the industrial automation ecosystem. If not Node-RED specifically, check for adjacent tech like OPC-UA or IIoT platforms.
1. Can you share an example of a time when you helped a customer expand or deepen their use of a solution over time?
   * Goal: Gauge if they’ve played a role in post-sale expansion, solution discovery, or upsell enablement, key traits for this forward deployed engineer role.
1. How comfortable are you leading technical conversations with both engineers and business stakeholders?
   * Goal: Evaluate communication range and confidence in dealing with mixed audiences, an essential skill for FlowFuse’s customer base.
1. Have you ever delivered a proof of concept (PoC) or demo as part of a sales process?
   * Goal: Validate they’ve led or contributed to technical pre-sales motions.
1. Do you have experience working remotely and managing your own schedule across multiple customers?
   * Goal: Confirm self-management and comfort with autonomy in a remote startup environment.

#### Evaluation Criteria

* Go Forward if they:
  * Have customer-facing technical experience (especially in IIoT or automation).
  * Can communicate clearly across technical and business audiences.
  * Show signs of proactivity and comfort with ambiguity.
* No-Go if they:
  * Lack relevant experience (pure dev, sysadmin, etc.).
  * Struggle to articulate impact in customer engagements.
  * Are uncomfortable with remote work or startup dynamics.