Principal Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)This role is Office/Field Based, Hyderabad OfficeWe are seeking an accomplished Principal Forward Deployed Engineer to serve as the critical bridge between Cornerstone's product engineering teams and our most strategic enterprise customers. As a principal-level FDE, you will own end-to-end technical engagements, drive successful deployments of AI-powered Workforce Agility products, and translate complex customer needs into product innovations.
In this role you will...- Lead technical deployments and integrations of Cornerstone's AI-native Workforce Agility products at strategic enterprise accounts, ensuring high-impact, successful outcomes.
- Act as the primary technical authority in customer engagements - owning solution architecture, implementation strategy, and long-term adoption planning.
- Partner directly with customers to deeply understand their workforce challenges, then design and deliver tailored AI-driven solutions leveraging Generative AI and Agentic Frameworks.
- Translate field learnings into actionable product feedback, influencing roadmap decisions by collaborating closely with Product, Engineering, and AI teams.
- Build and maintain reference architectures, integration patterns, and deployment playbooks that scale best practices across the FDE organization.
- Mentor and technically guide junior FDEs, establishing standards for customer delivery, technical discovery, and solution design.
- Present technical vision and deployment strategies to C-suite and senior stakeholders, building confidence and driving executive alignment.
- Identify and prototype custom solutions - including scripts, APIs, and AI workflow extensions - that accelerate customer time-to-value.
- Stay current with enterprise integration technologies, AI advancements, and industry trends to continuously elevate customer engagements.
You've got what it takes if you have...- Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, Engineering, or a closely related field (or equivalent experience in senior enterprise technical roles).
- 6+ years of hands-on experience in enterprise software deployment, systems integration, or solutions engineering - with strong proficiency in Python, Java, or equivalent.
- 1-2 years of experience deploying or integrating products built on Generative AI, LLMs, or Agentic Frameworks in production enterprise environments.
- Deep familiarity with AI/ML concepts (NLP, recommendation systems, LLMs) sufficient to architect AI-native solutions and communicate technical trade-offs to customers
- Proven track record of owning complex, multi-stakeholder enterprise deployments from discovery through go-live and value realization.
- Experience with Agentic systems and familiarity with A2A (Agent-to-Agent) and MCP (Model Context Protocol) patterns in customer-facing contexts.
- Strong understanding of enterprise integration patterns - REST APIs, event-driven architectures, SSO/identity, HRIS/HCM systems (Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, etc.).
- Exceptional communication and executive presence: equally fluent explaining architecture to engineers and articulating business value to CHROs and CTOs.
- Outstanding problem-solving instincts - able to diagnose ambiguous customer environments quickly and drive toward solutions under pressure.
- Leadership qualities that inspire trust with customers and cross-functional internal teams alike.
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