Forward Deployed Engineer, AWS Forward Deployed Engineering

Amazon is hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer, AWS Forward Deployed Engineering in Arlington, United States. It pays $144k-$194k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Level.

AI in this role

Embed with enterprise customers to design, build, and deploy production-grade AI applications and agentic workflows.

pythonapici-cd

prompt-engineeringragai-agentssoftware-developmentai-applicationsretrieval-pipelinesworkflow-automationdistributed-systems

A Forward Deployed Engineer II (FDE II) embeds directly inside a strategic enterprise customer to independently design, build, deploy, and run AI-powered production systems alongside the customer's engineering team. FDE IIs write production-grade software and own delivery of complete AI workstreams end-to-end — from requirements gathering through production deployment — combining the technical rigor of an AWS SDE with the urgency and ownership required to deliver measurable customer business outcomes.

FDE IIs are autonomous contributors. They deliver working features spanning the full software lifecycle. They design cohesive implementations for ambiguous problems, making design trade-offs with appropriate guidance. They take on projects where the business problem is understood but implementations are not fully fleshed out, balancing constraints and limiting short-term workarounds. They coach others on producing high-quality code and train new team members.

Key job responsibilities
Embed within customer engineering teams. Work with customers, stakeholders, and peers to understand the business and customer value of the systems you build. Understand the customer's business processes, technical architecture, and operational constraints. Translate customer requirements into technical designs for AI-enabled production systems within your workstream. Requires 30–50% travel.

Build production AI applications. Design and develop production-grade software powering AI and agentic workflows — retrieval pipelines, workflow automation, API orchestration layers, data integration. Solve difficult problems with visible risks or roadblocks, bringing clarity and identifying simple designs for solutions. Integrate foundation models, customer data sources, and existing applications into cohesive AI experiences. Optimize for latency, reliability, and cost.

Own production for your workstream. Be a significant contributor to the full software development lifecycle including scoping, design, code, testing, deployment, operations, and maintenance. Troubleshoot production incidents across AI models, distributed systems, and application services. Ensure root causes of operational issues are identified and resolved. Implement monitoring, evaluations, guardrails, and CI/CD that keep AI systems healthy. Don't settle for the status quo — routinely identify and execute on opportunities to improve operations.

Mentor and uplift. Actively mentors and trains new team members on how systems are constructed, operated, and fit into the bigger picture. Coach others on producing high-quality code through mechanisms such as code review. Be active in the code review process, providing meaningful feedback to others.

Accelerate customer adoption. Identify opportunities to expand AI adoption within your customer engagement. Codify reusable patterns and accelerators that benefit future customer deployments and feed back into AWS services. Make enhancements that improve your team's software and processes.

About the team
ABOUT AWS:

Diverse Experiences
Amazon values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the preferred qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying.

Why AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. We pioneered cloud computing and never stopped innovating — that’s why customers from the most successful startups to Global 500 companies trust our robust suite of products and services to power their businesses.

Work/Life Balance
We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why we strive for flexibility as part of our working culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve in the cloud.

Inclusive Team Culture
AWS values curiosity and connection. Our employee-led and company-sponsored affinity groups promote inclusion and empower our people to take pride in what makes us unique. Our inclusion events foster stronger, more collaborative teams. Our continual innovation is fueled by the bold ideas, fresh perspectives, and passionate voices our teams bring to everything we do.

Mentorship and Career Growth
We’re continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth’s Best Employer. That’s why you’ll find endless knowledge-sharing, mentorship and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.

10047

Basic qualifications

- 3+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
- 2+ years of experience working in an Agile, startup, or rapidly scaling environment
- Experience communicating technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences
- Degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent professional experience
- Experience with agentic and spec-driven development (developing AI agents a plus)
- Experience with AI tools: eval frameworks, agent tooling, RAG pipelines, and prompt engineering

Preferred qualifications

- 3+ years of full software development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations experience
- Experience working in customer production environments
- Experience building or deploying AI/ML applications in production environments
- Background as a founder, engineering lead, or startup builder with high ownership and urgency
- Prior experience with React, TypeScript, Python, and/or Go
- Experience interfacing with customers or leading technical projects with external stakeholders
- Experience working with teams that build and scale end-to-end production systems
- Experience with AWS services

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.

The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.

USA, MA, Boston - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually
USA, NY, New York - 158,100.00 - 213,800.00 USD annually
USA, VA, Arlington - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually
USA, WA, Seattle - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Forward Deployed Engineer, AWS Forward Deployed Engineering at Amazon rates 85 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Open the description and count.

Key facts

Forward Deployed Engineer, AWS Forward Deployed Engineering is an open job at Amazon.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The listed salary is $144k-$194k a year.
The role is based in US, VA, Arlington.
The job was posted on October 12, 2026.
Seniority: mid.
Applications are handled by Amazon. Apply on Amazon

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

Prompt engineeringRAGAI agentsSoftware DevelopmentAI ApplicationsRetrieval PipelinesWorkflow AutomationDistributed Systems

Also common in forward deployed engineer jobs at this level

LLM Machine learning Azure Google Cloud Generative AI Fine-tuning

Pay

This job starts at: $144k
Typical forward deployed engineer job: $182k

This posting starts 21% below the typical forward deployed engineer job. See forward deployed engineer jobs

Questions you could be asked

How do you structure and test a prompt to get consistent output from a language model?
How would you design a retrieval step so the model answers from real data instead of guessing?
How do you decide when an AI agent can act on its own versus asking for approval first?
Tell me about a project where software development was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where ai applications was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Prompt engineering, RAG, AI agents, Software Development, and AI Applications. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

Want an expert to read your CV for this job?

Free. Send your CV and the role you want next. We reply by email within 2 to 4 business days.

Get a free CV review Check your resume with the ATS resume checker

Get new forward deployed engineer jobs (Builds AI ●●●●) by email

One email a week with the new forward deployed engineer jobs (Builds AI ●●●●), each rated for how much AI is in the work. No recruiter spam, unsubscribe in one click.

Free. One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click.