Lead Forward Deployed Engineer to manage complex customer engagements, secure data deployments, and enhance integration with cloud and on-prem solutions. Responsibilities include technical discovery, pilot management, and mentoring team members.
About Symmetry Systems
Symmetry Systems is the Data+AI Security company. Our data security posture management platform is engineered specifically to address modern data security and privacy challenges at scale from the data out, providing organizations the ability to innovate with confidence. With total visibility into what data you have, where it lives, who can access it, and how it's being used, Symmetry safeguards your organization's data from misuse, insider threats, and cybercriminals, as well as unintended exposure of sensitive IP and personal information through use of generative AI technologies.
Position Overview
As a Lead Forward Deployed Engineer, you will sit at the intersection of customer outcomes, product, and go to market. You will lead complex deployments and pilots, turn ambiguous “we need to secure our data and AI” problems into concrete solutions, and help shape what we build next based on what you see in the field.
What you will do
- Own outcomes for high stakes customer engagements
- Lead technical discovery to map a customer’s data and identity reality, including key data stores, flows, access patterns, and risk hotspots.
- Drive successful pilots and proofs of concept from blank slate to measurable value, including success criteria, implementation plans, and executive ready outcomes.
- Deploy, integrate, and make it real
- Design and implement secure deployments across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments, including AWS, Azure, GCP, and on premise patterns.
- Integrate Symmetry into customer ecosystems such as identity systems, data platforms, and security tooling, leaning on existing integrations and building new ones when needed. Take advantage of AI tooling (such as Claude code) to expedite integrations.
- Translate data security posture and identity risk signals into prioritized remediation plans, including least privilege, dormant access reduction, and anomalous activity response.
- Be the technical closer without being salesy
- Partner with Sales to run technical workshops, threat and risk reviews, and architecture sessions that build trust and momentum.
- Handle the hard questions about how this works in real environments and about long term outcome arcs.
- A Lead in the Forward Deployed Engineering group
- Mentor other Forward Deployed Engineers and set the bar for technical excellence, customer empathy, and execution.
- Build reusable assets such as deployment playbooks, demo environments, reference architectures, and battle tested troubleshooting guides.
- Create tight feedback loops with Product and Engineering, turning patterns from the field into roadmap input and shipped improvements.
Qualifications
- 5 or more years of experience in roles such as Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Architect, hands on Sales Engineer, Customer Engineer, Security Engineer, or similar, with deep technical delivery rather than presentation only responsibilities.
- Proven ability to lead complex technical engagements with enterprise customers across security, data, platform, and executive stakeholders.
- Strong cloud fluency across AWS, Azure, and GCP, including IAM concepts, networking fundamentals, logging and audit patterns, and deploying production grade services.
- Comfort working with modern data ecosystems and the realities of data sprawl across warehouses, lakes, object stores, and SaaS platforms.
- Strong debugging and systems thinking skills, with the ability to isolate root cause from ambiguous symptoms and communicate clearly while unblocking teams.
- Ability to write production quality code or scripts when needed, for example in Python, Go, or TypeScript, and to reason deeply about APIs and integrations.
- Prior experience mentoring or leading others, either formally or informally, with a genuine interest in making the team better.
- Ability to set direction in ambiguous situations, make tradeoffs, and keep customers and internal teams aligned.
- Strong relationship skills and executive presence with calm, clear communication and high trust under pressure.
Nice to Haves
- Experience in data security, DSPM, cloud security posture management, identity governance, or Zero Trust initiatives, especially those involving data object level controls.
- Familiarity with security operations workflows such as alerting, investigations, audit evidence generation, and incident response.
- Experience working in regulated environments with privacy, compliance, or audit requirements.
- A track record of building repeatable deployment playbooks or scalable post sales motions.
Perks and Benefits
- Flexible Work: Our workforce embraces flexibility, whether working from home or at our global locations. We encourage you to tailor your work style to suit your productivity.
- Equipment and Software: We provide a liberal expense policy for acquiring the tools you need to excel in your role.
- Training and Growth: Access exceptional technical, leadership, and organizational training opportunities tailored to your development needs.
- Recognition: We celebrate our employees' accomplishments through blog features, product showcases, and conference talks.
- Cutting-Edge Work: Be at the forefront of innovation in generative AI and ML applications within data security, and see your contributions used and valued by many.
At Symmetry - Customer empathy is treated as a technical skill. We win by understanding real world environments and constraints rather than forcing rigid templates. Outcomes matter more than activity.
We focus on measurable security and governance improvements, not just installation.Field learnings directly shape the product. What you see in real deployments influences what we build next.
Symmetry Systems is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.
Top Skills
APIs
AWS
Azure
Data Platforms
GCP
Go
Identity Systems
Python
Security Tooling
Typescript
Symmetry Systems San Francisco, California, USA Office
San Francisco, CA, United States
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