Forward deployed engineer

TL;DR As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you'll embed with customers and partners to build, deploy, and win the technical trust that lands and grows enterprise deals. Remote, low travel, high ownership. We are looking for someone who can build, understand how enterprises work, and walk into a room and talk to a CIO like a peer. You've spent years in the enterprise space—maybe leading teams, maybe sitting in our buyer's chair—and you're ready to get deeply hands-on again: closer to the code, closer to customers, and using AI tools to move fast. If that sounds like you, read on.

Role Overview

Forward Deployed Engineers are Harper's most trusted people in the field—highly technical, customer-facing engineers who embed in customer environments, drive real adoption and outcomes, and are trusted advisors when it's time to win the business. This is a role for someone with deep, been-there-done-that enterprise experience and a consulting mindset. You'll build, deploy, and troubleshoot inside real customer environments, and you'll sit across from enterprise buyers and speak their language because you've been in their chair. You'll lean on modern AI tooling every day to move faster, and you'll help customers see how AI fits into their architecture. We care far more that you can walk into a room with a CIO, architect, or operations lead and talk about their real problems with authenticity than we do about any single development framework or services delivery experience on your resume. We move fast, wear many hats, and value people who flex to get things done. You won't have a playbook for most things; instead you'll help write it. And unlike most forward-deployed roles: this one is remote and doesn’t require constant travel. If you're tired of the corporate grind and want to get your hands dirty again—closer to the code, closer to customers, using your experience where it counts—this is your stage.

Key Responsibilities

• Customer Technical Delivery Partner closely with customers to understand technical requirements, business objectives, and operational constraints. Build, configure, customize, integrate, and deploy Harper's platform to meet unique customer workflows—directly within customer environments. Troubleshoot and resolve systems, data, integration, and operational issues during deployment and after go-live. Own customer outcomes end-to-end, working independently in ambiguous, fast-moving environments while staying aligned with internal teams and partners.
• Customer Calls & Presales Support Get in the room with enterprise buyers—leading technical discussions with developers, architects, and executive sponsors with the authenticity of someone who has sat in their seat. Support the sales cycle: run discovery, shape technical direction, and help prove Harper's value to technical and executive stakeholders.
• Solution Engineering & Hands-On Development Write and ship production-quality code, scripts, APIs, and automation to extend Harper's capabilities on behalf of customers. Prototype custom functionality and deliver field-ready solutions that address immediate customer needs, validated in real customer environments.
• Partner Enablement & Co-Delivery Enable and upskill system integrators and technology partners to deliver Harper solutions independently and at scale. Co-deliver strategic engagements alongside partners, providing deep technical guidance and quality assurance.
• Product Insight & Cross-Functional Collaboration Serve as the customer's voice inside Harper—gathering field insights, surfacing real-world gaps and customer patterns, and bringing them to Product and Engineering with evidence and a clear point of view.
• Incident Support & On-Call Participate in on-call rotations to support platform reliability and availability. Provide engineering expertise during incidents and escalations, troubleshooting platform and infrastructure issues to minimize customer impact.
• AI Fluency & Modern Engineering AI is core to how Harper builds, sells, and delivers—and it's core to this role. Forward Deployed Engineers are expected to be fluent, hands-on users of AI tooling and conversant in the concepts behind it.

Qualifications

Required Deep enterprise experience with a consulting mindset (top priority). 8–10+ years of real-world experience, often including team or senior leadership. You've owned client outcomes, navigated ambiguity, and can speak to enterprise buyers with the authenticity of someone who has been in their chair. Genuinely customer-facing. You want to be on customer calls, lead the conversation, and do presales work—not just build behind the scenes.

Preferred Prior leadership or senior individual-contributor experience in an enterprise environment. Experience enabling and co-delivering with system integrators, channel, or technology partners.