Forward Deployed Engineer – Technical Evangelist

Akka (formerly Lightbend)

Forward Deployed Engineer providing technical expertise for building applications on the Akka platform. Focused on guiding customer projects from initial setup to deployment with a production-ready mindset.

Posted 4/24/2026full-timeRemote • 🇺🇸 United StatesMid-LevelSeniorWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

CloudDistributed SystemsJavaKubernetes

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Guiding customers to build & release successfully
Spec-Driven Development: Guide customers through rigorous, specification-first development to ensure AI agents and distributed systems meet strict functional requirements
Production Readiness: Provide hands-on architectural support for hardening systems, building policy ladders with extensive guardrails, and mitigating deployment risks
Technical Execution: Assist in environment setup and perform code reviews to ensure applications are production-grade
Knowledge Transfer: Act as the technical anchor, bridging the gap between initial setup and final deployment with the goal of customer self-sufficiency
Maintaining customer expertise in post-production
Strategic Subject Matter Expert: Serve as the consistent expert for complex, customer-specific issues
Maintain Architectural Context & Growth: Join recurring customer meetings or host weekly "Office Hours" to stay aligned with the system's evolution and identify new opportunities to expand the account
General Technical Support Complex Issue Resolution: Act as the initial point of contact for complex issues that "spill over" from the broader Operational team
Bidirectional Product Collaboration: Work closely with internal product and engineering teams across all project phases to influence roadmaps based on direct customer insights, while mastering the latest platform innovations to bring specialized, high-value knowledge and assistance to the customer

Requirements

What you’ll need

Distributed Computing Experience: Proven experience in distributed architecture and functional programming concepts
Agentic AI & Logic Systems: Proficient in building logic systems using LLMs through multi-agent interactions
AI Safety & Guardrails: Knowledgeable in building policy ladders and implementing extensive guardrails to ensure agentic behavior remains within defined business and safety boundaries
Experimentation & Evaluation: Preferable background in building AI test suites for rigorous experimentation and evaluation to measure model performance and agent reliability
JVM Experience: Strong understanding of Java or other JVM-based languages
Voracious Learner: You are an agent of change, constantly learning and seeking better outcomes for your clients
Communication & Passion: Excellent written and verbal communication skills with a genuine passion for enabling others to adopt new technologies
Cloud-Native Expertise: Deep understanding of application deployment and container orchestration, particularly Kubernetes

Benefits

Comp & perks

A transparent, distributed work environment with a strong focus on work-life balance
Challenging work that interacts with innovative applications used by millions
A collaborative culture that attracts the 'brightest minds' in the technology community

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

distributed computingfunctional programmingAI safetypolicy laddersJavaJVM-based languagesAI test suitesKubernetesapplication deploymentcontainer orchestration

Soft Skills

communicationpassion for technologyvoracious learnercustomer self-sufficiencycomplex issue resolutionstrategic subject matter experttechnical executionknowledge transfercollaborationguiding customers