Principal Forward Deployed Engineer

About Persistent

We are an AI-led, platform-driven Digital Engineering and Enterprise Modernization partner, combining deep technical expertise and industry experience to help our clients anticipate what's next. Our offerings and proven solutions create a unique competitive advantage for our clients by giving them the power to see beyond and rise above. We work with many industry-leading organizations across the world, including 20 Fortune 50 companies and 4 of the 5 top banks in both the US and India, and numerous innovators across the healthcare ecosystem.

Our disruptor's mindset, commitment to client success, and agility to thrive in the dynamic environment have enabled us to sustain our growth momentum. Persistent has been recognized across top industry platforms for innovation, leadership, and inclusion. We reported $1,654.4M FY26 revenue with 17.4% Y-o-Y growth. We have delivered 24 sequential quarters of growth with $436.0M in Q4 FY26 revenue, up 3.2% Q-o-Q and 16.2% Y-o-Y growth. Our 27,500+ global team members, located in 18 countries, have been instrumental in helping the market leaders transform their industries.

About Position:

We are seeking an exceptional Principal Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE3) to join our strategic engineering organization. This is a senior, highly technical, customer-facing role focused on solving complex business and technology challenges through hands-on engineering, cloud-native architectures, AI-powered solutions, and deep collaboration with AWS and enterprise customers. Unlike traditional consulting or delivery-focused roles, this position requires an engineering-first mindset with the ability to lead through working software, production-grade prototypes, reference implementations, and architecture innovation. The ideal candidate will possess expertise across AWS, distributed systems, modern data platforms, Generative AI, Agentic AI, cloud-native application development, and enterprise transformation initiatives.

• Role: Principal Forward Deployed Engineer - AWS & Agentic AI
• Location: All Persistent Locations
• Experience: Between 15 to 20 Years
• Job Type: Full Time Employment

What You'll Do:

• Act as Persistent's frontline technical representative for AWS and strategic enterprise customers.
• Lead technical engagements from problem definition through architecture design and solution realization.
• Translate complex business challenges into scalable cloud-native architectures and solution blueprints.
• Design, develop, and demonstrate production-grade proof of concepts, prototypes, accelerators, and reference implementations.
• Conduct technical discovery workshops, architecture assessments, modernization reviews, and solution strategy sessions.
• Partner closely with AWS teams and customer stakeholders to identify and accelerate strategic opportunities.
• Lead architecture reviews, code walkthroughs, technical demonstrations, and engineering workshops.
• Drive cloud modernization, application modernization, data modernization, and AI transformation initiatives.
• Design solutions utilizing AWS services, serverless technologies, container platforms, data services, and AI/ML ecosystems.
• Architect event-driven, distributed, and real-time processing solutions for enterprise-scale environments.
• Design and implement highly scalable, resilient, fault-tolerant, and secure systems.
• Build reusable frameworks, technical assets, accelerators, and engineering playbooks.
• Contribute to strategic pursuits, technical proposals, and high-impact customer engagements.
• Mentor architects and engineering teams on cloud-native development, AI systems, and engineering best practices.
• Drive innovation through Generative AI, Agentic AI, multi-agent systems, and modern cloud architecture patterns.
• Represent the organization through customer presentations, technical forums, conferences, blogs, and thought leadership initiatives.

Expertise You'll Bring:

• 15-20 years of experience in Software Engineering, Platform Engineering, Distributed Systems, Cloud Architecture, or Enterprise Engineering.
• Deep hands-on expertise across AWS services including compute, storage, networking, security, serverless, containers, and data platforms.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems design and large-scale cloud-native architectures.
• Experience designing highly available, fault-tolerant, self-healing, and resilient systems.
• Expertise in event-driven architectures, asynchronous processing, and real-time systems.
• Experience designing enterprise-scale cloud transformation and modernization solutions.
• Strong understanding of microservices architecture and API-first engineering.
• Experience working with modern enterprise data platforms and large-scale data ecosystems.
• Hands-on expertise with NoSQL, document, graph, and vector databases.
• Strong understanding of data modeling, ETL/ELT pipelines, and data migration programs.
• Experience with Change Data Capture (CDC), streaming architectures, and modern data integration patterns.
• Experience building data-intensive cloud-native applications and analytics platforms.
• Strong proficiency in Rust, Go, C++.
• Experience developing high-performance and distributed systems.
• Strong understanding of systems programming concepts and scalable software architecture.
• Experience building enterprise APIs, backend platforms, and cloud-native services.
• Hands-on experience with enterprise integration technologies such as GraphQL, gRPC, MuleSoft, Apache Camel, WSO2, Boomi.
• Experience integrating complex enterprise platforms, cloud services, and APIs.
• Experience designing secure cloud architectures and implementing cloud security best practices.
• Strong understanding of Identity and Access Management (IAM), zero-trust concepts, and secure software engineering practices.
• Experience with observability platforms, distributed tracing, telemetry, monitoring, and log analytics.
• Knowledge of incident management, operational excellence, and platform reliability practices.
• Experience implementing enterprise-scale monitoring and observability solutions.
• Strong expertise in Generative AI application development and enterprise AI architecture.
• Experience designing Agentic AI and Multi-Agent Systems.
• Hands-on experience with prompt engineering and AI orchestration frameworks.
• Strong understanding of AI guardrails, governance, and responsible AI practices.
• Experience with LLM evaluation frameworks and AI observability solutions.
• Knowledge of chain-of-thought logging, AI monitoring, and model governance.
• Experience designing enterprise AI platforms and intelligent automation solutions.
• Hands-on experience with AWS Bedrock and modern AI ecosystems.
• Proven ability to engage senior AWS leaders, architects, engineering executives, and customer stakeholders.
• Strong consulting and solutioning mindset with the ability to influence technology strategy through technical credibility.
• Experience driving architecture strategy, modernization programs, and enterprise transformation initiatives.
• Strong leadership, mentoring, and cross-functional collaboration capabilities.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity and provide clarity through engineering-driven problem solving.
• Excellent presentation, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Active participation in open-source communities and technology ecosystems.
• Experience publishing technical blogs, articles, whitepapers, conference talks, or industry contributions.
• Ability to conduct architecture reviews, solution deep-dives, and executive-level technical discussions.
• Broad technology vision spanning cloud, AI, applications, infrastructure, security, observability, and data platforms.

Benefits:

• Competitive salary and benefits package
• Culture focused on talent development with quarterly growth opportunities and company-sponsored higher education and certifications
• Opportunity to work with cutting-edge technologies
• Employee engagement initiatives such as project parties, flexible work hours, and Long Service awards
• Annual health check-ups
• Insurance coverage: group term life, personal accident, and Mediclaim hospitalization for self, spouse, two children, and parents

Values-Driven, People-Centric & Inclusive Work Environment:

Persistent is dedicated to fostering diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We invite applications from all qualified individuals, including those with disabilities, and regardless of gender or gender preference. We welcome diverse candidates from all backgrounds.

• We support hybrid work and flexible hours to fit diverse lifestyles.
• Our office is accessibility-friendly, with ergonomic setups and assistive technologies to support employees with physical disabilities.
• If you are a person with disabilities and have specific requirements, please inform us during the application process or at any time during your employment.

Let's unleash your full potential at Persistent - persistent.com/careers

"Persistent is an Equal Opportunity Employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind."