Forward Deployed Engineer

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Forward Deployed Engineer (AI & Agentic Systems)

Overview

We are seeking a customer-focused Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to help enterprises identify, validate, design, and scale AI-powered solutions that deliver measurable business outcomes.

As an FDE, you will operate at the intersection of AI consulting, solution architecture, rapid prototyping, and delivery advisory. You will work closely with business stakeholders, enterprise architects, platform teams, and engineering squads to transform opportunities into scalable AI solutions while balancing business value, technical feasibility, governance, and production readiness.

The ideal candidate combines architectural depth, hands-on technical credibility, customer engagement skills, and a pragmatic delivery mindset. Candidate should be comfortable engaging with business leaders, challenging architectural decisions, building rapid prototypes, and guiding solutions from experimentation through last mile adoption.

While hands-on implementation experience is important, success in this role is defined by the ability to rapidly validate business value, shape scalable solutions, and help customers move confidently from proof-of-value to enterprise adoption.

Key Responsibilities

AI Solution Architecture

You will lead the design of enterprise grade AI solutions and guide customers through architecture decisions that align with their business and technology strategies.

Key areas of focus may include:

• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
• Agentic AI solutions
• Multi-agent systems
• Enterprise knowledge platforms
• Conversational AI
• Intelligent automation
• Enterprise integration patterns
• AI reference architectures

Responsibilities may include:

• Defining architecture blueprints and solution patterns.
• Evaluating trade-offs across models, frameworks, and platforms.
• Guiding enterprise architects and engineering teams through design decisions.
• Establishing scalable and reusable implementation approaches.

Rapid Prototyping & Solution Validation

A core expectation of this role is the ability to validate business value quickly before significant delivery investment is made.

You will:

• Conduct discovery workshops and use-case assessments.
• Evaluate the customer's existing technology landscape and approved toolset.
• Build prototypes using available enterprise platforms and AI capabilities.
• Develop Proofs of Concept (POCs) and Proofs of Value (POVs).
• Validate technical feasibility, business value, and adoption potential.
• Define implementation roadmaps for successful prototypes.
• Partner with engineering teams to industrialize and scale approved solutions.

AI Governance & Responsible AI

You will help ensure AI solutions are designed and deployed responsibly within enterprise environments.

Responsibilities include:

• Defining AI governance approaches and guardrails.
• Embedding Responsible AI principles into solution design.
• Aligning solutions with:
• Security requirements
• Compliance obligations
• Privacy standards
• Data governance policies
• AI risk management practices
• Supporting architecture assurance and governance reviews.

Delivery & Production Readiness

While not a pure platform engineering role, the FDE must be capable of assessing whether solutions can successfully operate at enterprise scale.

Expected areas of knowledge include:

• Production hardening
• AIOps (MLOps, LLMOps, AgentOps)
• Evaluation frameworks
• Observability and monitoring
• Reliability engineering
• Scalability planning
• Cost optimization

You will:

• Challenge implementation approaches where necessary.
• Review solution readiness for production deployment.
• Provide architectural guidance on operational and support considerations.
• Help teams navigate the transition from prototype to production.

Polycloud & AI Platform Strategy

Customers operate across diverse cloud and technology environments. The FDE should be able to provide platform neutral guidance while understanding the strengths and limitations of major AI ecosystems.

Responsibilities include:

• Advising customers on platform and model selection.
• Evaluating deployment options based on business and technical requirements.
• Designing solutions that remain portable and adaptable.
• Supporting multi-cloud and cross-platform AI strategies.

Cloud Expectations

Candidates should demonstrate:

• Deep expertise in at least one major hyperscaler:
• Microsoft Azure
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Working knowledge of multi-cloud architectures and AI platform capabilities.
• Understanding of cloud native AI services, enterprise data platforms, and modern integration patterns.

Consulting & Client Advisory

The FDE acts as a trusted advisor throughout the customer AI journey.

Responsibilities include:

• Facilitating business and technology discovery workshops.
• Assessing current-state technical and functional ecosystems.
• Identifying and prioritizing AI opportunities.
• Developing business cases and value realization approaches.
• Creating transformation roadmaps and implementation plans.
• Presenting recommendations to technical and executive stakeholders.
• Building trusted relationships with customer leadership teams.
• Serve as a trusted technical advisor throughout the customer AI adoption journey.
• Facilitate discussions across business stakeholders, architects, platform teams, and engineering leadership.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in Solution Architecture, Technology Consulting, AI Engineering, Customer Engineering, or related disciplines.
• Experience in designing and delivering enterprise technology solutions.
• Strong understanding of Generative AI, Agentic AI, and modern AI architectures.
• Experience with RAG, agents, multi-agent systems, and enterprise integration patterns.
• Familiarity with AI governance, security, compliance, and Responsible AI principles.
• Strong communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience working directly with enterprise customers and senior stakeholders.
• Ability to balance business value, technical feasibility, governance requirements, and delivery constraints when shaping AI solutions.

Preferred Experience

Experience with one or more of the following is desirable:

• Agent development and orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, LlamaIndex, AutoGen, CrewAI)
• Azure AI Services/Foundry
• AWS Bedrock
• Vertex AI
• Databricks
• Snowflake
• Copilot Studio
• Power Platform
• Enterprise search and knowledge management platforms
• ProCode and NoCode development approaches

What Success Looks Like

A successful FDE will:

• Identify high-value AI opportunities for customers.
• Rapidly validate ideas using prototypes and experiments.
• Design scalable and governable AI solutions.
• Influence architectural and implementation decisions.
• Build credibility with both business and technical stakeholders.
• Help delivery teams scale successful solutions into production.
• Drive measurable customer outcomes and adoption.

About NTT DATA
NTT DATA is a $30+ billion trusted global innovator of business and technology services. We serve 75% of the Fortune Global 100 and are committed to helping clients innovate, optimize and transform for long-term success. We invest over $3.6 billion each year in R&D to help organizations and society move confidently and sustainably into the digital future. As a Global Top Employer, we have diverse experts in more than 50 countries and a robust partner ecosystem of established and start-up companies. Our services include business and technology consulting, data and artificial intelligence, industry solutions, as well as the development, implementation and management of applications, infrastructure, and connectivity. We are also one of the leading providers of digital and AI infrastructure in the world. NTT DATA is part of NTT Group and headquartered in Tokyo.

Equal Opportunity Employer
NTT DATA is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer with a global culture that embraces diversity. We are committed to providing an environment free of unfair discrimination and harassment. We do not discriminate based on age, race, colour, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, disability, pregnancy, marital status, veteran status, or any other protected category. Join our growing global team and accelerate your career with us. Apply today.