# Forward Deployed Engineer

**Company:** [Instacart](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/instacart)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** Solutions Architecture
**Salary:** $169k – $214k/yr
**Experience:** 10+ years
**Skills:** Python, LLM APIs, Function Calling, Tool Use, Agent Frameworks, Rag Pipelines, Enterprise Data Integration, Retail Systems, E-Commerce Systems
**Posted:** 2026-06-08

> Forward Deployed Engineer embedding with enterprise retail customers to design, build, and deploy AI/agentic solutions on top of their infrastructure while bridging field learnings back to R&D.

## Job Description

## About the Job

- Embed with enterprise retail customers and partners to understand their technical environments, data systems, and business workflows.
- Design, build, and deploy AI and agentic solutions tailored to each customer's specific infrastructure and needs, across Instacart's full platform suite.
- Extend, adapt, and integrate Instacart's core AI capabilities to fit customer ecosystems, even when those systems are undocumented or non-standard.
- Maintain a close working relationship with R&D: participate in product reviews, flag platform gaps encountered in the field, and propose concrete changes that would make the platform work better for enterprise customers.
- Collaborate closely with the AI Solutions Architect to translate domain requirements and architecture into working software.
- Serve as the primary technical point of contact for customers during implementation engagements.

## Minimum Qualifications

- 10+ years of software engineering experience with a demonstrated ability to write and ship production-quality code.
- Hands-on experience building with LLM APIs, function calling, tool use, agent frameworks, or RAG pipelines—you have shipped something agentic that real users depended on.
- Proficiency in Python or another scripting/backend language commonly used in data-intensive environments.
- Proven ability to integrate with messy, heterogeneous enterprise data environments — undocumented APIs, schema mismatches, auth complexity, and legacy systems that do not behave the way the docs claim.
- Direct experience with external enterprise customers or technical stakeholders in a consulting or customer-facing capacity — earning trust in the room matters as much as writing code.
- Strong working knowledge of retail and e-commerce system fundamentals.
- Strong communication skills — able to translate field learnings and technical findings into actionable input for R&D and product teams.
- Comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments where the process is not fully defined.

## Preferred Qualifications

- Prior work in a forward deployed, embedded engineering, or professional services capacity.
- Background at a startup or early-stage company where you wore multiple hats.
- Experience in enterprise software implementation, systems integration, or solutions engineering.
- Exposure to retail tech, e-commerce, or supply chain systems.

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