Forward Deployed Data Engineer - Houston
$180k - $230k • Houston
Posted 20d ago
Job Location
Houston
Tech Stack
Remote Work Policy
On-site
Categories
AI Engineer
About the job
As a Forward Deployed Data Engineer (FDE) on our US Launch Team, you will be the principal technical anchor embedded directly within high-stakes enterprise client accounts, focusing heavily on the Energy Sector. You will bridge the gap between C-suite data strategy and hands-on production code, working alongside partners like Databricks and Anthropic. Your role involves leading architecture design, modernizing legacy systems into cloud-native Lakehouses, building agentic AI data harnesses, and guiding teams to ship working software rapidly.
Responsibilities
- Serve as the primary technical authority on client engagements, partnering with stakeholders to scope architectures and create engineering plans.
- Write and optimize production PySpark, Databricks SQL, and Delta Live Tables (DLT) to refactor legacy logic into Medallion Architectures.
- Architect secure data harnesses that integrate LLM workflows into enterprise data pipelines.
- Write Terraform scripts to provision cloud environments, manage governance via Unity Catalog, and enforce CI/CD.
- Partner with nearshore engineering squads as the US technical lead, conducting code reviews and debugging.
- Act as the technical safety net, jumping into code to fix issues and keep client delivery on track.
Requirements
- Deep proficiency in Python and advanced SQL with a proven track record of shipping production data software.
- Hands-on experience building, scaling, and tuning Databricks Lakehouse environments (Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, PySpark, DLT, Workflows).
- Expert-level experience with dbt for data modeling, Terraform for Infrastructure as Code, and Git/Airflow for orchestration and CI/CD.
- Demonstrated background migrating enterprise client workloads from legacy platforms (Teradata, Netezza, Informatica, Oracle) to modern cloud infrastructure.
- Comfort pitching target architectures to client CTOs and debugging code alongside junior engineers.
- Ability to translate business requirements into architectural patterns and communicate across technical and business functions.