Principal Forward Deployed Engineer

Are you ready to shape the future of data?

Matillion is the company behind Maia, the AI Data Automation platform. 

In the AI economy, demand for data is exploding. Manual data engineering can’t keep up. Maia fixes that by combining 15 years of data expertise with agentic AI to eliminate the manual work that slows data teams down. Organisations like Cisco, DocuSign, and Slack are already using it to deliver real business impact, faster.

We started in Manchester and now we’re global - with teams across the UK, US and India.

We are driven, curious, energetic people who move fast, think big and hold ourselves to a high standard. We’re here to make a dent in the universe bigger than ourselves. And we’re looking for people who want to be part of it.

The Principal Forward Deployed Engineer is Matillion’s most senior technical field expert, deployed to handle high-stakes, deeply complex, and ambiguous customer adoptions of Maia. Operating across all organisational levels, they write production-grade code alongside customer engineers, design architecture with executive leadership, and unite Matillion’s internal teams, Sales, Support, Product, and Engineering, to turn stalled accounts into reference wins. By resolving complex issues directly and identifying new expansion opportunities, they serve as the vital link driving customer adoption and revenue growth.

Beyond direct customer engagement, this role shapes the future of Matillion’s engineering practice and product offerings. As a foundational leader in the Forward Deployed Engineering function, they establish reference architectures, set engineering standards, and build internal automation tooling alongside the DevX team. Additionally, they mentor rising FDEs and translate hard-won field insights directly into the core product roadmap to continually improve delivery across the entire business.

• Architecting strategic data solutions by designing reference architectures, building complex data pipelines and models across cloud platforms, and guiding customers through to production.

• Solving high-complexity engineering problems by remaining a hands-on contributor to the Matillion codebase and tackling the toughest technical challenges.

• Establishing function-wide technical standards by setting the engineering, architecture, and quality benchmarks that the entire Forward Deployed Engineering practice operates by.

• Delivering pragmatic customer outcomes by questioning initial requirements, scoping solutions down to valuable MVPs, and eliminating systemic failure modes before they occur.

• Advising executive leadership by building trusted relationships with VPs and CTOs and acting as the primary escalation authority for business-critical accounts.

• Empowering customer self-sufficiency by training internal champions and delivering clear documentation so customer teams can independently maintain and extend the solutions.

• Partnering with pre-sales and driving expansion by serving as the technical authority in high-stakes deals to support account growth alongside Sales without carrying a commission quota.

• Influencing the core product strategy by identifying repeating delivery patterns and working directly with Product and Engineering leadership to turn custom fixes into platform features.

At Matillion, we are committed to providing compensation in line with market standards based on the role, job family, job level and country. This role's estimated annual salaried pay range for this position is £124,240 - £186,360. The final salary will be based on your relevant skills, experience and qualifications demonstrated in the hiring process.