Principal Forward Deployed Engineer

The Principal Forward Deployed Engineer is Matillion's most senior technical field expert, deployed to handle high-stakes, deeply complex, and ambiguous customer adoptions of Maia. Operating across all organisational levels, they write production-grade code alongside customer engineers, design architecture with executive leadership, and unite Matillion's internal teams, Sales, Support, Product, and Engineering, to turn stalled accounts into reference wins. By resolving complex issues directly and identifying new expansion opportunities, they serve as the vital link driving customer adoption and revenue growth.

Beyond direct customer engagement, this role shapes the future of Matillion's engineering practice and product offerings. As a foundational leader in the Forward Deployed Engineering function, they establish reference architectures, set engineering standards, and build internal automation tooling alongside the DevX team. Additionally, they mentor rising FDEs and translate hard-won field insights directly into the core product roadmap to continually improve delivery across the entire business.

What you will be doing:

• Architecting strategic data solutions by designing reference architectures, building complex data pipelines and models across cloud platforms, and guiding customers through to production.
• Solving high-complexity engineering problems by remaining a hands-on contributor to the Matillion codebase and tackling the toughest technical challenges.
• Establishing function-wide technical standards by setting the engineering, architecture, and quality benchmarks that the entire Forward Deployed Engineering practice operates by.
• Delivering pragmatic customer outcomes by questioning initial requirements, scoping solutions down to valuable MVPs, and eliminating systemic failure modes before they occur.
• Advising executive leadership by building trusted relationships with VPs and CTOs and acting as the primary escalation authority for business-critical accounts.
• Empowering customer self-sufficiency by training internal champions and delivering clear documentation so customer teams can independently maintain and extend the solutions.
• Partnering with pre-sales and driving expansion by serving as the technical authority in high-stakes deals to support account growth alongside Sales without carrying a commission quota.
• Influencing the core product strategy by identifying repeating delivery patterns and working directly with Product and Engineering leadership to turn custom fixes into platform features.

What we are looking for:

• 8+ years of production-grade software engineering experience in object-oriented languages (preferably Java), with deep expertise in distributed systems, event-driven architectures, Kubernetes, and cloud platforms across AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Strong background in cloud data platforms including Snowflake, Databricks, Amazon Redshift, and Google BigQuery, paired with a solid foundation in data architecture and networking.
• Proven ability to define reference architectures, establish engineering standards, enforce code quality, and lead large-scale codebase refactoring.
• Adoption of an agentic-first approach to software delivery, leveraging AI tools as quality multipliers, with hands-on experience in production LLMs, RAG, and AI agents valued.
• Executive presence and customer empathy, acting as a trusted advisor to VP and CTO-level stakeholders while building long-term executive relationships.
• Sound engineering judgment in highly ambiguous, high-stakes environments, enabling clear architectural decisions under pressure.
• Ability to drive cross-functional change and influence technical strategy across teams without relying on direct authority.
• Track record of delivering transformational technical impact for complex enterprise customers, guiding engagements from initial MVP through to full production.
• Founder mentality characterized by strong ownership, drive, a bias for action, and the ability to convert emerging technologies into clear customer value.
• Commitment to customer self-sufficiency through structured documentation, team training, and handoff frameworks that allow clients to maintain and extend their systems.