{"id":4178920,"url":"https://alion.io/job/surrealdb-forward-deployed-engineer-platform","title":"Forward Deployed Engineer, Platform","company":{"id":713824,"name":"SurrealDB","domain":"surrealdb.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/surrealdb","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Pinpoint","truth_index":null},"role":"Solutions","role_family":"Solutions","seniority":null,"employment_type":"contractor","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":["London, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"Azure AKS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure Cosmos DB","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":false},{"name":"Letta","optional":false},{"name":"Mem0","optional":false},{"name":"Microsoft Entra ID","optional":false},{"name":"OpenTofu","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":false},{"name":"Pulumi","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false},{"name":"SurrealDB","optional":false},{"name":"Terraform","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-11T16:56:31Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-11","last_verified_at":"2026-11-12T16:56:31Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":1,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":1},"description":"SurrealDB is on the lookout for platform engineers to join our bench of Forward Deployed Engineers, working inside enterprise customers’ engineering teams to deploy, integrate and run SurrealDB and SurrealDB Agent Memory in production. Few people have years of SurrealDB or agent memory experience, so we care more about solid engineering habits and how fast you learn than years on a CV. We train and certify every Forward Deployed Engineer before they go to a customer.\nIn this role, you will own the platform side of a customer build: environments, data, integration and the non-functional requirements that decide whether a system can go live. You will pair with an Agentic Systems Engineer who owns the agent and memory design, and on most engagements you will be the technical lead for the pair. You will report to a SurrealDB engineering manager, who assigns your work, sets technical direction and supports your progress, while an engagement manager handles delivery updates to the customer.\nAbout this engagement\nContract role, starting in November or December 2026 and running for around three months, full time\nOpen to applicants based in the UK or the US\nWorking US Eastern hours, including for UK-based consultants\nYou will work on customer-provided equipment and complete a background check before starting\nOccasional on-site travel may be required\nOur client will make the final selection. If you are not selected for this particular engagement, we will consider you for our bench of approved contractors for future opportunities\nBased outside the UK or US? We are also building our bench for future customer work, open to engineers around the world. You can apply through our Forward Deployed Engineer, Contractor Network role [link]\nWhat you'll be doing\nOwnership for designing and standing up SurrealDB and Agent Memory environments on the customer's cloud or on SurrealDB Cloud: topology, networking, identity, secrets and access\nResponsible for data modelling in SurrealQL across documents, graph relations and vectors, and for query and index tuning\nLeading on CI/CD and infrastructure as code (Terraform or OpenTofu) for customer environments\nBuilding ingestion and migration pipelines from existing stores such as Cosmos DB, Postgres, MongoDB, vector databases or search services\nResponsible for observability, backup, upgrades, security reviews and performance testing, including agent memory services and their dependencies\nDocumenting progress and risks for the weekly status report, plus runbooks and reference infrastructure for future engagements\nContributing to customer architecture and security questionnaires with the SurrealDB team\nAbout you\nHands-on experience of deploying or integrating at least one agent memory tool, such as Mem0, Graphiti/Zep, Letta, LangMem or Cognee (a personal or open-source project counts)\nProven experience of running services on at least one major cloud: AWS, Azure or GCP\nStrong technical background in containers, Kubernetes and infrastructure as code (Terraform, OpenTofu or Pulumi)\nExperience in database work beyond basic CRUD: data modelling, indexes, query plans and migrations\nWorking knowledge of at least one of Python, TypeScript, Go or Rust\nAbility to explain technical decisions clearly to customer engineers, architects and security teams\nAbility to work hours that overlap with the customer, often US Eastern Time, and to complete a customer background check\nLiving in the UK or US with existing right to work there; we do not sponsor visas\nFamiliarity with SurrealDB, Azure (AKS, Entra ID, Key Vault), observability stacks or regulated environments is a strong plus; community contributors and SurrealDB Ambassadors are encouraged to apply\nWe understand that each candidate brings a unique set of skills and experiences, and we encourage applicants to apply even if you do not meet every qualification listed in the job description.","description_format":"text","description_chars":3912,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"},{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Databases & DBMS"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-12T16:56:31Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"GB","licensed_sponsor":true,"adverts_offering_sponsorship_24m":0,"sanctioned_now":false,"evidence":"Licensed UK visa sponsor (Skilled Worker)","filings_12m":null,"filings_prev_12m":null,"green_card_filings_12m":null,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":"Skilled Worker","cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-11-12T09:37:45+00:00","sources":["UK Home Office: register of licensed sponsors (workers)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":1,"expected_fill_days":26,"reasons":["conf:4","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-12T21:01:25Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/surrealdb-forward-deployed-engineer-platform","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/surrealdb-forward-deployed-engineer-platform.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-12T21:01:25Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":44410,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-13T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":713824},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=713824"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fsurrealdb-forward-deployed-engineer-platform"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fsurrealdb-forward-deployed-engineer-platform"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fsurrealdb-forward-deployed-engineer-platform"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/surrealdb-forward-deployed-engineer-platform\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fsurrealdb-forward-deployed-engineer-platform"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":4178920}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"surrealdb.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":4178920},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); 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