Lead Forward-Deployed Engineer (Data platform)

We are looking for a Lead Forward-Deployed Engineer (Data platform) to join our team in boarder Zurich area, Switzerland in a hybrid working mode. In this role, you will contribute to a large-scale international IT engagement focused on modern data platforms, security, business applications and IT operations. You will join the Data track, collaborating with Data Architects, BI Engineers and Business Analysts while working closely with an onsite delivery lead. Your focus will be on optimizing and enhancing a modern data platform built on technologies such as Snowflake, ClickHouse, dbt, Fivetran and AWS-native data services. Additionally, you will embed AI and agentic tooling where practical value is measurable, prototype new platform capabilities and validate improvements with users before development handoff.

We offer/Benefits

- 5 weeks of vacation

- EPAM Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)

- Enhanced parental leave

- Extended pension plan

- Daily sickness allowance insurance

- Employee assistance program

- Global business travel medical and accident insurance

- Learning and development opportunities including in-house training and coaching, professional certifications, and courses

*All benefits and perks are subject to certain eligibility requirements

- Please note that any offers will be subject to appropriate background checks

- We do not accept CVs from recruiting or staffing agencies

- For this position, we are able to consider applications from the following:

- Swiss nationals

- EU/EFTA nationals

- Third-country nationals based in Switzerland with an appropriate work permit

- Displaced people from Ukraine who are currently in Switzerland and hold, or have already applied for, S permits

Requirements

- 6+ years of professional experience with 2+ years in platform engineering or forward-deployed solution engineering roles

- Proven expertise in Snowflake and ClickHouse

- Strong proficiency in dbt and Fivetran

- Hands-on experience leveraging AI-assisted or agentic development tools

- Ability to analyze platform performance and optimize architectures for scalability and speed

- Experience with AWS Data Stack

- Familiarity with tools such as Anthropic Claude or AWS Bedrock

- Professional fluency in English

Responsibilities

- Continuously assess platform performance and identify bottlenecks or inefficiencies for improvement

- Embed AI and agentic tooling in platform environments to enhance speed, reliability and cost-effectiveness

- Prototype new platform capabilities across ingestion, transformation and query workflows

- Validate prototypes directly with end users prior to transferring into the build process

- Own technical feasibility assessments for emerging AI-driven and agentic optimization opportunities

- Harden validated prototypes for delivery and integration into standard pipelines with Data Platform Engineers

- Contribute reusable optimization patterns to the AI Solution Engineering practice