Principal Forward-Deployed Engineer

Role Overview

Job Responsibilities

• Shaping the bet: Running concept sprints with client executives, product managers and designers, turning broad ambition into something scoped and testable.
• Winning the work: Partnering with account leads to shape technical narratives on new pursuits, owning technical scope in proposals, and presenting confidently.
• Proving it: Setting technical direction for prototyping, including what to build, what to fake, what to buy, and what evidence each prototype needs to produce.
• Landing it: Owning an architecture that ships in three months and stands up long-term, establishing delivery systems around it.
• Advising: Serving as a trusted technology advisor to key stakeholders, aligning technical options with business outcomes, and presenting to steering committees.
• Developing team members: Pairing, reviewing code, and mentoring colleagues, creating reusable practices to support team continuity.

Job Qualifications - Technical Skills

• Programming languages: Strong proficiency in Python or TypeScript, with working knowledge of the other, alongside experience shipping production code in at least one additional language.
• AI & LLM ecosystems: Hands-on experience with major LLM providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Bedrock, Vertex), RAG and vector databases (pgvector, Pinecone, Elastic), and agent frameworks (LangGraph, LangChain, LlamaIndex).
• AI evaluation & observability: Proficiency in offline/online evaluations, golden datasets, LLM-as-judge patterns, tracing, and cost monitoring using tools like Braintrust, LangSmith, Langfuse, or custom harnesses.
• AI-assisted development & prototyping: Active adoption of AI tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Replit) and rapid prototyping platforms (v0, Lovable, Figma Make) to accelerate delivery.
• Cloud platforms & DevOps: Deep expertise in AWS, GCP, or Azure, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), containerization (Kubernetes, Docker), and automated CI/CD pipelines.
• Software architecture & integration: Solid foundation in API design, event-driven streaming (Kafka, Kinesis, Pub/Sub), microservices, and integrating with enterprise legacy systems.
• Data engineering & analytics: Experience with modern data platforms (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks) and orchestration tools (dbt, Airflow, Dagster) to design architectures for AI workloads.
• Frontend development & modern practices: Capability to build prototypes using React/Next.js, alongside engineering practices like TDD, pair programming, continuous deployment, and threat modeling (OWASP LLM).
• Governance, security & compliance: Experience delivering under complex regulatory environments (GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, Saudi PDPL, or EU AI Act) and high-security standards.
• Regional & cross-cultural engagement: Experience delivering in GCC markets or international settings, with Arabic language proficiency or public advocacy being a strong plus.

Job Qualifications - Professional Skills

• Effective communication: Comfortable and clear when presenting to diverse groups, facilitating workshops, leading pitches, or writing documentation that remains impactful asynchronously.
• Product-minded approach: Fluent in outcome-driven delivery, continuous discovery, hypothesis testing, and focusing on minimum lovable products over output alone.
• Inclusive leadership and mentorship: Skilled at guiding, pairing with, and unblocking engineers, empowering team members from all backgrounds to grow and own their work.
• Adaptability in ambiguity: Composed when facing complex challenges, transitioning seamlessly between strategic advisor and hands-on collaborator as needs evolve.
• Collaborative feedback: Open to giving and receiving constructive feedback with empathy, continuously sharing knowledge across disciplines.

Travel and Location

• This is a KSA-anchored role. Expect regular time in Riyadh and other GCC client sites — roughly 40% regional travel — plus occasional global (10%) for CXPD-wide gatherings, cross-region pursuits and knowledge sharing.

Why You Might Like It Here

• High-impact visibility: Work on flagship projects that deliver meaningful outcomes, where your contributions gain wide recognition across client teams and industry spaces.
• Global perspective and variety: Collaborate across diverse global markets, industries, and multidisciplinary teams, continually enriching your experience.
• Hands-on technical depth: Stay actively engaged with technology leadership without sacrificing practical engineering judgment or hands-on innovation.
• Shaping the future of AI: Help define best practices for AI-first product development at the intersection of technology, product strategy, and user experience.
• Growth and inclusive culture: Define your own path with tailored coaching, support, and learning opportunities in a culture that deeply values diverse backgrounds, varied experiences, and potential.

Your First Year, Roughly