Forward Deployed Engineer

Job Description

Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) AI & Solutions

Join us at Zendesk where were on a mission to power exceptional service for every person on the planet. Were accelerating that ambition by building products rooted in AI automation and intelligent customer experiences because behind every interaction lies an opportunity to make a human connection.

Were hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to join our Technical Presales team. Where youll be an elite hybrid: part software engineer part strategic consultant. Youll do more than just sell the dream youll execute whats possible.

In this role youll be embedded with strategic customers to design build and deliver production-grade AI solutions that unlock measurable ROI. Youll translate customer needs into robust integrations architect LLM-powered workflows and collaborate cross-functionally to turn real-world friction into product improvements.

You will play a vital role in growing Zendesks enterprise footprint by delivering high-impact scalable AI deployments. Building trusted technical partnerships delivering crisp production-ready solutions and amplifying Zendesks AI capabilities within complex high-value accounts.

What youll be doing

• Lead end-to-end technical delivery of AI agent and LLM-powered solutions: discovery scoping system design PoC production rollout and operational handoff.

• Build production-grade integrations and custom connectors (APIs data pipelines RAG systems) to surface high-quality signals into Zendesk AI workflows.

• Troubleshoot and resolve escalated technical blockers across data infra and model behavior. Act as the fields final line of defense for complex issues.

• Collaborate closely with Sales engineering and product teams to map undocumented systems define integration patterns and implement solutions.

• Translate customer learnings into product feedback and prioritized roadmap items; partner with Zendesk Product and Engineering to reduce future deployment friction.

What you bring to the role

• Founder mindset: comfortable navigating ambiguity mapping unknown systems and delivering results without a predefined playbook.

• Engineering rigor: 5 years building production systems; strong software engineering fundamentals and attention to quality.

• Full-stack fluency: experience across frontend (React/TypeScript) backend (Python / Node / Java / Ruby) REST/GraphQL APIs and cloud infrastructure (AWS GCP or Azure).

• AI/LLM expertise: practical experience with LLMs prompt engineering retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) vector stores and evaluation/guardrails for model safety and reliability.

• Systems integrator: proven ability to design secure data ingestion ETL/data pipelines and work with diverse data stores and message systems.

• Excellent communicator: able to present trade-offs to executives and pair-program with customer engineers; strong written runbooks and documentation skills.

• Travel readiness: willing to travel as needed to customer sites (typical range 2550%).

Basic qualifications

• 5 years software engineering experience delivering production systems.

• Proficient in Python and JavaScript/TypeScript; experience with at least one backend language (Java Ruby or Go) preferred.

• Hands-on experience deploying or integrating LLM-based solutions in production (RAG vector DBs model evaluation).

• Practical experience with cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure) and containerized deployments (Docker Kubernetes).

• Comfortable working onsite with customers and traveling up to 50% as required.

Preferred qualifications

• Prior FDE Professional Services Solutions Engineering or Technical Account Management experience delivering enterprise AI or SaaS deployments.

• Experience with specific LLM tooling and frameworks (LangChain LlamaIndex Haystack or similar).

• Familiarity with Zendesk products and APIs or experience integrating customer support/contact-center platforms.

• Background in observability and operationalization of ML/AI (monitoring SLOs cost controls retraining pipelines).

• Experience with data governance PII handling and enterprise security/compliance constraints.

#LI-JF2

Hybrid: In this role our hybrid experience is designed at the team level to give you a rich onsite experience packed with connection collaboration learning and celebration - while also giving you flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. This role must attend our local office for part of the week. The specific in-office schedule is to be determined by the hiring manager.

The intelligent heart of customer experience

Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.

Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working enables us to purposefully come together in person at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world to connect collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.

As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer and were proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity equity & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race color religion national origin age sex gender gender identity gender expression sexual orientation marital status medical condition ancestry disability military or veteran status or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law please click here.

Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application complete any pre-employment testing or otherwise participate in the employee selection process please send an e-mail to with your specific accommodation request.