{"id":10035,"url":"https://alion.io/job/sandtechholdings-forward-deployed-engineer-malawi","title":"Forward Deployed Engineer, Malawi","company":{"id":3417,"name":"Sand Technologies","domain":"sandtechholdings.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/sandtechholdings","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":88,"open_postings":36,"ghost_share":0.111,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":126,"computed_at":"2026-10-29T05:49:05Z"}},"role":"Solutions","role_family":"Solutions","seniority":"senior","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":["Malawi"],"countries":["MW"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":20000,"max_usd":46000,"period":"year","method":"global_role_cell_scaled_by_country","sample_n":1900},"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Airflow","optional":false},{"name":"dbt","optional":false},{"name":"ETL/ELT","optional":false},{"name":"FHIR","optional":false},{"name":"GDPR","optional":false},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"Superset","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-04-09T10:58:17Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-07-17","last_verified_at":"2026-10-29T21:56:26Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":203,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":202},"description":"About Sand\nSand Technologies is a global Physical AI company using data and AI to make critical industries work better. We partner with governments, cities and enterprises to improve how essential systems operate across healthcare, water, energy, telecommunications and infrastructure.\nOur work delivers proven real-world impact. We have built AI systems that help manage London’s water supply, supported telecom network planning across hundreds of cities, and developed digital healthcare platforms serving tens of millions of people across Africa. From intelligent command centers to AI-powered infrastructure platforms, we help organizations sense, analyze and act in complex environments.\nOur people are ambitious, curious and relentlessly practical. Our teams work alongside clients in the field, solving hard problems and deploying solutions that last. With colleagues across Africa, Europe, the UK and the US, we operate across the full stack - from research and engineering to deployment and capability building.\nOur mission is simple: to harness AI to solve humanity’s most pressing challenges.\nAbout the role\nSand is scaling rapidly across Africa, partnering with Ministries of Health to deploy the Health Operating System (HOS) - a decision-support and execution platform that transforms how health systems sense, analyze, and act on data. The HOS is already operational across multiple countries, with plans to expand to 15 countries by end of 2026, supported by 80+ Forward Deployed Engineers.\nAs a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), you are the technical spearhead of our client engagement in Malawi. Unlike our roaming FDE roles, this is a permanently embedded position. You will be based full-time within the Ministry of Health in Malawi, becoming a long-term extension of the client's operational team. Your mandate is to build deep institutional relationships, develop comprehensive understanding of the national health system, and deliver sustained value over an extended engagement - not just rapid sprints, but lasting transformation.\nThis is not staff augmentation. You are an amalgamation of three roles:\nThe Software Engineer - Deep technical acumen to build and deploy production-grade solutions using Sand's product suite\nThe Product Manager - Strategic foresight to understand client problems, influence business objectives, and identify expansion opportunities\nThe Consultant - Client-facing finesse to navigate complex stakeholder relationships, manage scope, and transfer knowledge\nYour primary mission is to prove our value fast, delivering functional solutions rapidly using Sand's products, playbooks, and tools, and then maturing those solutions into mission-critical infrastructure that the Ministry depends on daily. Over time, you become the institutional memory of the deployment - the person who understands the data landscape, the stakeholder dynamics, and the operational realities better than anyone.\nWho We're Looking For\nThe Forward Deployed Engineer is a highly ambitious individual. You are someone who is deeply keen on learning - someone who dives in headfirst to solve some of the hardest, most complex problems in global health. You thrive on understanding the technology, understanding the stakeholders, understanding our product suite, and weaving all three together to deliver solutions that change how health systems operate.\nThis role is not for someone looking for comfort or routine. It is for someone who wants to step outside of their comfort zone, build something they can be proud of, and grow faster than they thought possible. The FDE programme is a career accelerator - an intensive rotation that exposes you to technical depth, strategic thinking, and client leadership in equal measure, all while working on problems that matter for millions of people.\nFor this permanently embedded role, you also need the maturity and resilience to sustain deep client relationships over months and years - not just weeks. You will become the face of Sand in Malawi, and that requires patience, cultural fluency, and the ability to navigate institutional complexity while maintaining momentum.\nKey Responsibilities\nServe as Sand's Permanent Technical Presence in Malawi\nEmbed full-time within the Ministry of Health, becoming a trusted member of the client's extended team\nDevelop deep, longitudinal understanding of the national health data landscape, institutional dynamics, and operational priorities\nBuild and maintain relationships across all levels of the Ministry - from frontline data officers to senior leadership\nAct as the primary technical point of contact for all Sand activities in-country, coordinating with launchers, country directors, and visiting FDE teams\nDrive On-Site Value Delivery\nRapidly unlock, explore, and integrate client data sources (e.g., DHIS2, SCADA systems, network management platforms, operational databases)\nUnderstand client problems through prototyping and rapid value delivery - deploying POCs and MVPs using Sand's product components and playbooks\nTransition initial solutions into hardened, production-grade systems that the Ministry relies on daily\nOwn the long-term health of deployed solutions - monitoring adoption, troubleshooting issues, and iterating based on user feedback\nDeliver and track value generated through deployment of Sand products\nEnable Product-Led Growth\nLead with Sand's existing product suite - know the products by heart and where each solution is most effective for the domain you're deployed in\nDocument learnings, client challenges, and successful solutions as reusable patterns for the broader FDE community\nDrive discovery and expansion by uncovering new opportunities on the ground\nBuild Local Capacity and Sustainability\nWork alongside Ministry teams to co-create solutions and progressively transfer knowledge, ensuring they can operate and maintain systems independently\nIdentify, recruit, and mentor local data engineers, scientists, and analysts to build sustainable in-country capacity\nDevelop training materials and documentation tailored to the local context, language, and skill level\nBe the continuity that ensures handover isn't a cliff - you bridge the gap between Sand's deployment and the Ministry's long-term ownership\nFeed the Platform Feedback Loop\nChannel field learnings back to improve the core product through structured mechanisms (Technical Deep Dives, Solution Swarms, pattern documentation)\nTurn \"gravel roads\" into \"paved superhighways\" - document solution patterns so the next FDE can move faster\nContribute field feedback that influences 30% of the product roadmap\nRequirements - Essential\nBachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related technical field\n5+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, data science, system deployment, or technical leadership\nProficiency in at least one of: Python, SQL/PostgreSQL, JavaScript - with ability to write production-grade code\nStrong problem-solving skills with a bias toward action and rapid prototyping\nExcellent communication and stakeholder management skills - comfortable presenting to senior government or corporate stakeholders and translating between technical and non-technical audiences\nExperience working with or deploying to government, public sector, or large institutional clients\nProven ability to lead local technical teams and build capacity\n Willingness to relocate and be permanently based in Malawi for the duration of the engagement (12-24+ months)\nLanguage: Local language proficiency is a significant advantage\nRequirements - Preferred\nExperience with data integration, ETL pipelines, and working with diverse data sources\nExperience in one or more of Sand's focus domains: health informatics/digital health, water utility operations, telecommunications network operations, or energy systems\nFamiliarity with domain-specific platforms (e.g., DHIS2, OpenMRS for health; SCADA, GIS for water/energy; OSS/BSS for telecom)\nExperience with BI and dashboarding tools, particularly Apache Superset\nExperience with data transformation tools such as dbt or Airflow\nComfort working with data dictionaries, reporting requirements, and identifying common data quality issues\nKnowledge of data security, privacy, and interoperability standards (e.g., FHIR for healthcare, GDPR, local data sovereignty requirements)\nExperience operating in resource-constrained environments (unreliable power, limited connectivity)\nWork Environment\nThis is a permanently embedded role. You will work on-site at the Ministry of Health in Malawi 4 days per week, with 1 day for focused remote work, internal collaboration, and knowledge sharing with the broader FDE community. You should expect to be based in Malawi for a minimum of 12-24 months.\nYou must be self-driven, comfortable operating as Sand's primary technical representative in-country, and disciplined with online collaboration tools to stay connected with the broader Sand team across geographies. 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