Forward Deployed Engineer

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Collaborate with clients to implement Smallstep's device identity platform and facilitate their transition to production.

• Identify and troubleshoot technical issues hindering deployment efforts.

• Serve as the technical escalation contact for Technical Account Managers and Customer Success Engineers.

• Develop and release production-level Golang code to address root causes identified during deployment diagnostics.

• Create proof-of-concept environments utilizing Bash and Terraform.

• Draft runbooks for new product features prior to achieving a refined user experience.

• Establish daily priorities and tasks for deployment operations engineers.

• Engage in a structured on-call rotation with established service level agreements (SLAs).

• Uphold a high standard of customer experience and a service-oriented approach during implementation challenges.

• Evolve the role to balance responsibilities between live deployment resolution, creating reusable runbooks, and validating new use cases through proofs of concept.

• Work collaboratively across customer endpoint fleets, identity providers, and Smallstep's multi-service certificate authority services.

⛳️ Requirements

• Proven experience in debugging distributed, multi-service cloud infrastructures within active customer environments.

• Expertise in troubleshooting TLS/mTLS at the protocol level, encompassing certificate chain validation, trust stores, and handshake failures.

• Practical experience with certificate-based authentication, VPNs, enterprise Wi-Fi/EAP-TLS, RADIUS, SSH, and OAuth.

• Experience in developing and delivering production-quality Golang code.

• Ability to manage technical escalations directly with clients in collaboration with account teams.

• Familiarity with certificate enrollment protocols such as SCEP and ACME DA.

• Knowledge of PKI across macOS, Windows, Linux, and ChromeOS platforms.

• Experience with hardware-backed security solutions like YubiKeys, TPMs, HSMs, or secure enclaves.

• Familiarity with structured on-call rotations and SLAs.

• Prior experience in customer-facing technical roles, such as forward deployed engineering or solutions engineering.

• Proficiency in Bash, Terraform, Git, and GitHub Actions.

• Understanding of SCEP, ACME, SCIM, mTLS, EAP-TLS, RADIUS, PKI, X.509, SSH, and TPMs.

• Experience with macOS, Windows, Linux, and ChromeOS operating systems.

• Familiarity with Mobile Device Management solutions including Jamf, Intune, Workspace One, Google Workspace Admin, and Iru.

• Knowledge of Wi-Fi/RADIUS and VPN technologies.

• Commitment to adhering to company security policies, procedures, and best practices.

• Ability to maintain a strong customer experience and service-oriented mindset during implementation challenges.

🏝️ Benefits

• Equity

• Commission

• Bonus

• Competitive salary

• Industry-leading benefits

• Opportunity to share in the company’s success

• Flexible working hours

• Remote-first work environment

• Asynchronous work culture

• Inclusive and diverse workplace atmosphere

• Commitment to psychological safety