Forward Deployed Engineer

Forma.ai is a Series B startup that's revolutionizing how sales compensation is designed, managed and optimized. We handle billions in annual managed commissions for market leaders like Edmentum, Stryker, and Autodesk.

Our growth has been fuelled by our passion for fundamentally changing and shaping how companies use sales intelligence to drive business strategy.

We’re welcoming equally driven individuals who are excited about creating something big!

About the Role

Forma.ai is hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to work directly with our Revenue Optimization team and customers to build data-driven solutions for territory design, quota setting, market potential analysis, and seller performance.

This role sits at the intersection of software engineering, applied data science, and customer delivery. You will embed closely with business and customer-facing teams, quickly understand each customer’s data and objectives, and turn ambiguous problems into working solutions.

We are looking for someone highly driven, resourceful, and energized by solving difficult customer problems. You will be expected to take ownership, move with urgency, and persist through messy data, unclear requirements, and changing constraints to deliver meaningful outcomes.

Early solutions may be customer-specific, including Python models, simulations, data workflows, reports, and rep-level recommendations. A key part of the role is identifying repeatable patterns and turning successful implementations into reusable tools, libraries, and workflows that can support future customers.

This is not a traditional product engineering role. It is designed for someone who enjoys working close to customers, rolling up their sleeves, and owning problems from initial discovery through deployment and adoption.

What You’ll Do

• Work directly with Revenue Optimization leaders, analysts, and customers to understand their objectives, data, and operational constraints.
• Build and deploy Python-based models, simulations, reports, and recommendations for territory planning, quota design, market potential, and seller performance.
• Own customer problems from discovery and prototyping through validation, deployment, documentation, and adoption.
• Move quickly through ambiguity, investigate issues deeply, and do what is needed to deliver a reliable customer outcome.
• Turn successful customer-specific implementations into reusable components, workflows, and internal tools.
• Ensure all solutions use approved infrastructure and meet security, auditability, and customer-data requirements.

What We’re Looking For

• Strong professional experience using Python for data analysis, automation, applied data science, or backend development.
• Strong SQL skills and experience working with complex, incomplete, or unfamiliar customer datasets.
• Experience with Python libraries such as pandas, NumPy, SciPy, statsmodels, or scikit-learn.
• A strong sense of ownership and the determination to work through difficult problems until they are resolved.
• A bias toward action and the ability to deliver useful results without waiting for perfectly defined requirements.
• Genuine enthusiasm for understanding customers’ businesses and solving problems that materially affect their outcomes.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, including modular design, testing, version control, code review, and documentation.
• Experience deploying analytical workflows, internal tools, data pipelines, or customer-specific applications.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to work directly with customers, executives, analysts, and engineers.
• Comfort balancing rapid delivery with maintainability, security, and long-term reuse.
• The resilience and organization required to manage multiple customer-facing workstreams with limited oversight.

Nice to Have

• Experience in sales planning, revenue operations, incentive compensation, territory design, or quota setting.
• Experience with simulation, optimization, forecasting, geospatial analysis, or account scoring.
• Experience in forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, consulting, or professional services.
• Familiarity with cloud data platforms, workflow orchestration, and SOC 2-controlled environments.

What Success Looks Like

Within your first few months, you will be able to independently take a Revenue Optimization engagement from initial discovery through data analysis, solution development, deployment, and customer adoption.

Over time, success will include:

• Becoming a trusted technical partner who customers and internal teams rely on to solve difficult problems.
• Delivering high-value customer solutions quickly and reliably.
• Taking ownership of obstacles rather than waiting for someone else to resolve them.
• Reducing the time required to launch similar Revenue Optimization engagements.
• Turning repeated customer needs into reusable technical capabilities.
• Increasing the consistency, quality, and explainability of Revenue Optimization outputs.
• Enabling analysts to operate more workflows without ongoing engineering involvement.
• Maintaining strong security, data-access, and auditability standards across every deployment.

First 90 Days

First 30 Days

• Learn Forma.ai ’s Revenue Optimization services, customer use cases, data environment, and security requirements.
• Review previous territory, quota, market-potential, and rep-recommendation projects.
• Shadow active customer engagements and understand the current delivery process.
• Contribute to an initial analysis, model, or workflow.

First 60 Days

• Own a defined technical workstream within a customer engagement.
• Work directly with analysts and stakeholders to refine requirements and validate outputs.
• Build reusable Python components, data-validation steps, or reporting workflows.
• Independently investigate and resolve issues that could prevent successful delivery.
• Document the solution, assumptions, operating process, and limitations.

First 90 Days

• Deliver an end-to-end customer solution with limited oversight.
• Convert at least one repeated implementation pattern into a reusable capability.
• Establish clear testing, deployment, documentation, and support practices.
• Recommend opportunities to make the Revenue Optimization offering more scalable.

Who Will Thrive in This Role

You will thrive in this role if you are ambitious, highly motivated, and energized by the responsibility of solving important customer problems. You enjoy working through ambiguity, moving quickly, and taking responsibility for outcomes rather than limiting yourself to a narrow set of assigned tasks.

You are willing to dig into unfamiliar data, ask difficult questions, iterate rapidly, and handle the less glamorous work required to get a solution into customers’ hands. When something is blocked or unclear, your instinct is to investigate, find a path forward, and keep momentum.

The strongest candidates will combine engineering discipline with a customer-first consulting mindset: they can deliver a practical solution for the customer in front of them while recognizing how that work can become a repeatable capability for future engagements.

Additional Job Info:

• This position is for an existing vacancy
• Salary range:

What you can expect from us

Meaningful compensation. In addition to your base salary, you’ll join our employee stock ownership plan to further recognize your contributions to Forma.ai ’s success.

Healthcare coverage. We have a full benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance, and a paid parental leave program.

Learning and development. Access the resources you want to help you grow in your role by utilizing our $750 yearly training stipend.

Growth. You’ll have a huge opportunity to build a career for yourself and gain the type of experience you’re looking for, whether that’s as an individual contributor or as a people leader.

Our Values:

• Work well, together. We’re real. We have kids and pets. Mortgages and student loans. We’re in this together, so no matter how brilliant any one of us is, we always play nice with one another – no exceptions.
• Be precise. Be relentless. We believe complacency breeds failure, so we set new goals as quickly as we achieve them. We persist in the face of adversity, learn from our mistakes, and push each other to continuously improve. The status-quo is kryptonite.
• Love our tech. Love our customers. Our platform solves a very complex problem in a currently underserved market. While everyone at Forma isn’t customer-facing, we’re all customer-focused. Maybe even slightly customer-obsessed.

Use of AI for Recruitment

Currently, Forma.ai does not use artificial intelligence as part of our recruitment process, specifically but not limited to the screening, filtering and shortlisting of applicants.

Our commitment to you:

Forma is a proud equal opportunity employer that is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive work environment.Every effort to accommodate candidates for accessibility will be made upon request. Information received related to accommodations will be addressed confidentially. We know that applying to a new role takes a lot of effort. You're encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn't precisely match the job description. There are many paths to a successful career and we’re looking forward to reading yours.

We thank all candidates for their interest however only qualified applicants will be shortlisted.

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