Forward Deployed Engineer

At Hammerspace, we believe that the most complex data challenges are solved where the code meets the mission. As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), you are not a consultant or a support engineer-you are a technical founder in the field. You will be embedded directly within our most strategic Lighthouse accounts to solve “The Last Mile” problem, ensuring our Global Data Environment becomes the backbone of their AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads.

This is a high-leverage, hybrid role that requires the technical depth of a Software Engineer, the strategic mindset of a Solution Architect, and the tenacity of a Business Developer.

Responsibilities

• Deep Customer Embedding: Act as the primary technical authority on-site, becoming an expert in the customer’s domain to identify and resolve real-world friction points before they escalate.

• AI & Workload Optimization: Design and implement data architectures that accelerate AI/ML training pipelines, ensuring low-latency data access across hybrid-cloud environments.

• The “Enhanced” Resident: Beyond standard maintenance, you will build custom integrations, automation scripts, and “last-mile” solutions that bridge the gap between Hammerspace’s core product and the client’s bespoke infrastructure.

• Business Cultivation: Act as a “technical scout.” Use your proximity to the action to identify new business problems, expansion opportunities, and emerging workloads that Hammerspace can solve.

• Engineering Shield & Feedback Loop: Partner with our Rotational Sustaining Engineering team to translate field-discovered bugs into core product features, ensuring that local fixes become global platform strengths.

• Stakeholder Management: Translate complex technical hurdles into clear, actionable insights for both end-users (data scientists/IT admins) and executive leadership.

• Infrastructure & AI Expertise: Deep understanding of GPU orchestration, AI/ML data pipelines, and high-performance file systems (NFS, SMB, S3).

• Principal-Level Networking: Mastery of high-speed networking (InfiniBand, RoCE, 100GbE+) and the ability to debug complex routing, latency, and throughput issues in a distributed environment.

• Coding & Scripting: Proficiency in Python, Go, or C++, with the ability to write production-grade tools and integrations that interface with Hammerspace APIs.

• Systems Knowledge: Strong Linux internals expertise, including kernel tuning, storage stack performance, and containerization (Kubernetes/Docker).

• Hammerspace Stack: Ability to quickly master the Global Data Environment architecture and deploy it across heterogeneous storage and cloud providers.

Professional Attributes

• Strategic Communicator: You can move seamlessly from a terminal window to a boardroom, explaining technical “why” to non-technical stakeholders.

• Autonomous Problem Solver: You thrive in undefined, “high-stakes” environments where the solution isn’t in a manual.

• Opportunity Hunter: You have a “knack” for seeing the next big project before the customer does, working alongside the Named CSM to drive account growth.

• Empathy-Driven: You understand that technical success is only half the battle; the other half is building trust and ensuring the customer feels supported., Agency must obtain advance written approval from Hammerspace’s recruiting function to submit resumes, and then only in conjunction with a valid fully-executed contract for service and in response to a specific job opening. Hammerspace will not pay a fee to any Agency that does not have such agreement in place.

The anticipated base salary range for this role is $200,000-240,000. Actual compensation will be determined by several factors including, but not limited to, level of professional/education experience, skills/abilities, internal equity, and budgetary considerations. In addition, Hammerspace offers a broad range of health plans for medical, dental, vision, life and disability. We also offer 401k plans and flexible time off.