Principal Forward Deployed Engineer

Alation is pioneering the next era of data intelligence — powered by AI agents and trusted data. Organizations around the world rely on Alation to drive self-service analytics, cloud transformation, data governance, and AI innovation. Our technology helps enterprises connect people and data to make faster, smarter, and more confident decisions. With more than $340M in funding – valued at over $1.7 billion and more than 650 customers, including 40% of the Fortune 100.

As data becomes the foundation of every business, Alation is leading the way in helping organizations unlock their full potential. By bringing intelligence, automation, and trust to every interaction, we empower customers to scale data-driven innovation with confidence and speed.

Joining Alation means being part of a winning team shaping the future of AI-powered data intelligence. We move fast, think big, and deliver results together.

Job Description:

As a Principal Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), you will be at the sharpest edge of that mission. This is not a consulting role. This is a 'get in the trenches and build' position for a seasoned technical leader who can turn ambiguous enterprise problems into production-grade, AI-driven solutions — often in days, not quarters.

You will be the primary technical bridge between Alation's most strategic enterprise customers and our Product and Engineering teams. Your work will directly shape how the world's largest organizations adopt autonomous AI — and how Alation's platform evolves to support it.

This is a strategic, senior-most individual contributor role within the Forward Deployed Engineering organization. You will report directly to the SVP of Forward Deployed Engineering and will have visibility and influence across field leadership, Product, and GTM. Lastly, we work in a hybrid model—you’ll join us in our Redwood City office to collaborate, connect, and enjoy a team atmosphere.

What You'll Do

• Architect and rapidly prototype AI agent systems — LLM-based, multi-agent, and agentic workflow designs — that automate complex reasoning tasks and data governance processes within Alation's platform.

• Embed directly with Fortune 500 stakeholders to deeply understand their data ecosystems, governance bottlenecks, and business objectives, then translate those into technical roadmaps grounded in Alation's Knowledge Layer capabilities.

• Build and deploy sophisticated BI and ML pipelines that convert raw, cataloged data into executive-grade insights — demonstrating measurable ROI tied to Alation deployments.

• Act as a force multiplier for Product and Engineering by feeding real-world edge cases, customer patterns, and AI use cases back into the core Alation platform roadmap.

• Partner closely with Deployment Strategists (DSs) to connect technical delivery to measurable business outcomes — ensuring every engagement is tied to customer value, not just configuration milestones.

• Define repeatable, scalable solution patterns that the broader FDE and DS teams can leverage — moving Alation from custom one-off builds toward high-margin, productized delivery.

• Conduct competitive analysis in the field — synthesizing what you see across customer environments, evaluating how Alation's AI and governance capabilities stack up, and surfacing actionable intelligence back to Product and GTM teams.

• Design and build internal tooling — accelerators, automation frameworks, and reusable components — that increase the velocity and consistency of the broader Forward Deployed Engineering team.

• Mentor field engineers and customer-side technical teams on best practices for agentic AI, data governance, and Alation platform architecture.

• Leverage AI tools to maximize your own efficiency and set the standard for how the Forward Deployed Engineering team operates at scale.

What You Bring

• 15+ years in software engineering, with significant time in customer-facing technical leadership roles — FDE, Solutions Architect, or CTO-office equivalents.

• Deep, hands-on experience with LLM orchestration frameworks (LangChain, AutoGen, CrewAI), vector databases, RAG architectures, and fine-tuning ML models for enterprise use cases.

• Proven track record delivering large-scale BI and data pipeline solutions — as comfortable with SQL and cloud warehousing as you are with predictive modeling.

• Architectural fluency across distributed systems, enterprise data governance, metadata management, and compliance-grade data platforms.

• The 'prototyper' mindset: you write production-quality code at hackathon speed. You ship, learn, and iterate — and you value working software over over-engineering.

• Executive presence and high EQ — the ability to walk into a room with a Fortune 500 CDO and earn trust in the first 15 minutes.

• Genuine enthusiasm for Alation's mission: you believe trusted data and intelligent governance are foundational to how enterprises win.

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Compensation Pay Range:

Salary Information

The base salary range is specific to the United States.  The salary of the final candidate selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to internal equity, experience, education, work location, specialty and training.  If the final candidate has a different level of experience, the base salary target range may be lower or higher than what is published.

Alation, Inc. is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regards to that individual’s race, color, religion or creed, national origin or ancestry, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability, veteran status, genetic information, ethnicity, citizenship, or any other characteristic protected by law.                                   
 

The Company will strive to provide reasonable accommodations to permit qualified applicants who have a need for an accommodation to participate in the hiring process (e.g., accommodations for a job interview) if so requested.  
 

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