Forward Deployed Software Engineer

Department: Outsourcing Services

Location: New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Columbus, Washington D.C., Salt Lake City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Raleigh, Memphis, San Jose, Tampa, Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, Richmond, Portland, Palm Beach, Orlando, Indianapolis, Detroit, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, Boston, Austin

Compensation: $60 – $100 per hour • Multiple Ranges

Employment Type: Contract

IT Labs is looking for a Senior Forward Deployed Software Engineer to join our team and work on a strategic delivery project for a deep-tech client operating at the intersection of advanced engineering, physics-based simulation, and artificial intelligence.

Our client is developing an AI-driven simulation and analytics platform that enables engineering organizations to accelerate innovation by applying modern cloud-native software practices to traditionally complex engineering workflows.

The platform is used by engineering teams in industries such as Aerospace, Automotive, Energy, Materials, and Advanced manufacturing.

These environments involve high-performance simulation, complex data pipelines, and large-scale engineering computation, making this an opportunity to work on cutting-edge applied AI systems used in real-world engineering.

The Role

As a Forward Deployed Software Engineer, you will work directly within the client’s delivery team to design and build customer-specific software solutions on top of the client’s platform.

This role sits at the intersection of software engineering, solution architecture, and customer delivery. You will collaborate closely with machine learning engineers, data scientists, platform engineers, and customer engineering teams to adapt and extend the platform to solve complex engineering problems.

In practice, this means:

• Extending existing platform capabilities with custom integrations

• Modifying frontend and backend services to support customer-specific workflows

• Designing and implementing system integrations and scalable application components

• Deploying and operating solutions in customer cloud or Kubernetes environments

The role is highly hands-on and requires engineers who are comfortable combining software engineering, system design, and customer-facing technical problem solving.

Responsibilities

Build customer-specific software solutions

• Design, develop, and maintain backend services using Python and FastAPI

• Implement REST APIs and microservices supporting AI-driven engineering workflows

• Extend existing platform applications with customer-specific integrations and services

• Implement background workers, data processing pipelines, and model inference integrations

Design scalable system solutions

• Design system architectures and technical solutions that integrate customer environments with the platform

• Translate complex engineering workflows into robust, scalable software systems

• Participate in system design discussions and architecture decisions for customer implementations

• Ensure systems meet standards for performance, scalability, reliability, and security

Work directly with customers

• Collaborate with customer engineering teams to understand technical workflows and constraints

• Identify integration points between the platform and existing engineering software or infrastructure

• Rapidly iterate on solutions based on real-world usage and feedback

Deliver end-to-end engineering solutions

• Develop prototypes and production-ready systems for customer use cases

• Deploy and operate services using Docker and Kubernetes

• Work with infrastructure tools such as Helm, Terraform, and cloud platforms (AWS/Azure)

Contribute to platform evolution

• Identify patterns across customer solutions and help generalize them into core platform capabilities

• Work with platform engineers to improve architecture, tooling, and integration workflows

Required Experience & Skills

• 6+ years of professional experience in software engineering

• Strong proficiency in Python with experience building backend systems

• Experience developing REST APIs and microservices (FastAPI or similar frameworks)

• Strong understanding of system design, software architecture, and scalable backend systems

• Experience deploying and operating applications in cloud environments (AWS, Azure, or GCP)

• Hands-on experience with Docker and Kubernetes

• Experience integrating services into complex distributed systems

• Experience working in customer-facing or delivery-oriented engineering roles

• Excellent communication skills and fluent English

• US citizenship required

Nice to Have

• Experience with AI/ML-enabled platforms or model inference systems

• Exposure to simulation platforms, scientific computing, or engineering software

• Experience integrating with legacy engineering systems or HPC environments

• Familiarity with OpenShift or enterprise Kubernetes environments

• Experience building data ingestion pipelines or ETL workflows

• Background in mechanical engineering, physics, or applied engineering domains

What Makes This Role Unique

This role combines:

• Hands-on software engineering

• System design and solution architecture

• Customer-facing technical delivery

• Applied AI in advanced engineering domains

Location & Working Model

• 1 year - 1099 Contract with extension as long as both parties are satisfied

• PTO

• Work as part of the IT Labs engineering team embedded within the client delivery team

• Collaboration with international engineering and customer teams

• Travel to customer sites may occasionally be required, depending on project needs

Our values

We are a company that seeks the best for both our employees and clients, reaching beyond expectations in turning dreams into reality. Our way of working is rooted in our core values (Integrity, Excellence, Proactivity, Innovation, and People), with an expectation that our future colleagues will make these their second nature in their everyday work and life. We don’t ask for perfection, but we do appreciate people motivated to better themselves in every conceivable aspect.

About IT Labs

Founded in 2005, IT Labs is an international software tech company, specializing in purpose and process-driven teams for high-performance, innovation, transformation, and efficiency. Our HQ is in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and we have teams around the world - the UK, the Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina, Serbia, Croatia, BIH, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and the Middle East. We are constantly growing, and we would love for you to become part of our team!