> Markdown version of [/jobs/ext/2303817-forward-deployed-engineer-ifs-copperleaf](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/jobs/ext/2303817-forward-deployed-engineer-ifs-copperleaf). Every page supports `.md` or `Accept: text/markdown`. Links point to the HTML versions so they work for humans too. Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Forward Deployed Engineer | IFS Copperleaf - **Company:** IFS North America - **Location:** Itasca, IL, United States (Remote available) - **Experience:** Expert - **Salary:** $99,840.0 - $112,320.0 - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Artificial Intelligence, ArcGIS (Software), Customer Data Management, Information Engineering, IBM Maximo, Python (Programming Language), Power BI, SAP (Applications), Software Engineering, SQL Databases, Systems Integration, Large Language Models, Multi-Agent Systems, AngularJS, Oracle Erp, Data Pipelines - **Published:** August 30, 2026 - **Apply:** https://www.jofdav.com/jobs/59461784-forward-deployed-engineer-ifs-copperleaf ## About the Role * Software or data engineering background. You have built and shipped real working software at some point in your career, not just scripts, and you write code another engineer can pick up and maintain. Fluent in Angular, Python or a similar language, and comfortable working in unfamiliar languages and codebases. An understanding of SQL, data modeling, and building pipelines for ingestion, transformation, and serving. Strong debugging instincts against imperfect customer data in live environments. * Depth in production engineering: observability, performance, and operating at scale. * Prior exposure to customer-facing technical work, solutions engineering, forward deployment, technical consulting, or a startup where you wore several hats. * Prior experience deploying AI in enterprise or regulated environments. Who Thrives Here * A deep listener, who obsesses on problem understanding and values outcomes. * A creator who builds and prototypes fast, whether standing up existing capability or inventing what does not exist yet. * AI-native and product-minded, with the judgment to know what is credible to demonstrate versus promise. * Secure building alongside a deal team without needing to own the relationship. * A communicator, who understands the cross-functional nature of the work and can hold their own at the lowest level investment planner to the boardroom executive. * A story-teller who can take what theyve created and craft the right messaging, understanding that what they've built changes behaviors, processes, and sometimes, mindsets. ## Description As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you sit cross-functionally across the Sales, Product, R&D, and Implementation teams. For our most critical pursuits, you stand up our current product on the customers own data, fast, to prove value inside the deal. And when a customer needs something our product does not yet do, you use modern AI tools to rapidly prototype a near-production ready solution and put it in front of them. You turn we cant do that into heres how, and the strongest prototypes go on to shape our roadmap. You own the technical outcome from discovery through production adoption. Your job is to win deals by delivering fast and with value in the current production environment, prototyping and articulating value from customer requirements, measuring and proving value across customer workflows, and continuously coordinating field-observed customer needs, ideas, roadmaps, and visions with the product and sales organizations. You are the shaper that understands customers needs, hypothesizes on value, co-creates the solution, and can test, measure, and validate the outcomes. What You Will Do * Work alongside Solutions Consultants and Account Executives with our most innovative and strategic accounts as well as our most important net new opportunities. * Own discovery, technical scoping, architecture, implementation, evaluation, productionization, adoption, and handoff for strategic customer solutions. Deploy and prove value. * Prototype aggressively; productionize deliberately. * For sales and product management validation, build the smallest safe prototype that tests the hypothesis inside the deals timeline. For production use, engineer for security, reliability, observability, maintainability, and integration with the customers architecture. * Build, deploy, and evaluate with customer data; measure adoption, workflow impact, reliability, and time-to-value; iterate with technical and business stakeholders. * Partner closely with Product and R&D to turn validated customer patterns and production evidence into supported roadmap investments, reusable components, and platform improvements. * Turn recurring needs into reusable accelerators so the whole team moves faster. * Develop solution specifications with the customer to feed product and engineering organizational understanding, continuously updating the specification as the solution and outcomes evolve. * Work with Product continuously as business value emerges and outcomes become known to evaluate business potential, broader market needs, competitive differentiation aspects, and functional/technical specifications., * Customer-facing and commercial ability. You can run a technical discovery session, hold a value conversation with both technical and business stakeholders, and connect what you build to the customer's outcome and the deal's value case. The ultimate value of this role is connecting technology to real business outcomes. * Abstraction and reuse. You can generalize what you built for one customer into a reusable accelerator the team applies on the next engagement. * AI and agentic engineering. LLM application development, RAG, prompt and context engineering, and agent orchestration, including the judgment for when to use single versus multi-agent patterns and how to handle memory and state. Modern AI coding tools such as Claude Code as daily practice, not novelty. * Familiar with enterprise integrations in a regulated utility market. Youre familiar with key customer systems such as ESRI ArcGIS/Smallworld, IBM Maximo/EAM, SAP/Oracle ERP/PPM, and PowerBI/reporting systems. You have a technical and functional understanding of REST and streaming APIs, authentication patterns, and integrating with enterprise systems of record. * Domain in asset-intensive industries (utilities, energy, transportation) or capital and asset investment planning. We hire for engineering strength and teach the domain, so this is a strong plus, not a gate. * Travel. Willingness to travel to customer sites as needed, up to ~50%., We embrace flexibility and hybrid work opportunities to support diverse needs and lifestyles, while also valuing inclusive workplace experiences. By fostering a sense of community, we drive innovation, strengthen connections, and nurture belonging. Our commitment ensures you can work in a way that suits you best, while also engaging with colleagues to share ideas and build meaningful relationships. ## Related Videos - [AI Won't Fix Your Engineering Culture](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100266-ai-won-t-fix-your-engineering-culture) - [How to Stop Choosing JavaScript Frameworks and Start Living](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/118-how-to-stop-choosing-javascript-frameworks-and-start-living) - [Beyond Dashboards: Fixing Text-to-SQL with Semantic RAG](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/2036-beyond-dashboards-fixing-text-to-sql-with-semantic-rag) - [Stand alone components in Angular](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/656-stand-alone-components-in-angular) - [REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and more: A comparison of modern API styles](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100247-rest-graphql-grpc-and-more-a-comparison-of-modern-api-styles) - [The Software Engineer 2030: From Coder To AI Orchestrator? - Patrick Schnell](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1825-the-software-engineer-2030-from-coder-to-ai-orchestrator-patrick-schnell) ## Related Articles - [Navigating the AI Shift](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/629-navigating-the-ai-shift) - [How to Become an AI Engineer](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/331-how-to-become-an-ai-engineer) - [Coffee with Developers - Maria Apazoglou - Making AI understandable for all in production](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/475-coffee-with-developers-maria-apazoglou-making-ai-understandable-for-all-in-production) - [What is Software Engineering in the Age of AI?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/640-what-is-software-engineering-in-the-age-of-ai) - [How We Built a Worry-Free System That Runs for 10+ Years – And What We’d Do Again](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/751-how-we-built-a-worry-free-system-that-runs-for-10-years-and-what-we-d-do-again) - [Stephan Gillich - Bringing AI Everywhere](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/489-stephan-gillich-bringing-ai-everywhere)