Job Description
The role
A Forward Deployed Engineer at Shopdev is a senior software engineer who also owns the client's problem. You will work directly with client engineering and product teams, work out what actually needs building, and deliver it end to end. AI does much of the typing, Page 1 of 9 Shopdev Hiring: Job Descriptions while you supply the judgement, the architecture and the verification. You will move between clients and projects over time, so the role rewards breadth and fast learning more than depth in one framework
What you will do
· Take an ambiguous request from a client, ask the questions that matter, and turn it into a plan the client agrees with
· Design and build production systems across the stack, using AI coding tools as your default way of working
· Review everything the AI produces, test the edge cases, and be able to explain why the result is correct
· Write clear updates, decision records and tradeoff notes that both engineers and non technical stakeholders can follow
· Join client calls as a peer, raise risks early, and hold your ground on technical decisions
· Pick up unfamiliar platforms and APIs quickly when a project needs them
What we look for
· At least five years of professional software engineering, with production systems you designed and shipped yourself
· A strong grasp of how systems fit together, including data flows, APIs, authentication, failure modes and integration between platforms
· Hands-on experience building real software with agentic coding tools such as Claude Code or Codex, including breaking work into tasks with clear context and acceptance criteria, running agents in parallel and writing reusable instructions or skills (using AI as autocomplete does not count)
· Excellent written English, and comfort speaking with senior client stakeholders in the US
· A track record of owning outcomes, finishing what you start and surfacing problems before anyone has to ask
· Enough commercial sense to know when good enough is the right answer
Strong plus
Experience with macOS internals, ServiceNow development, enterprise PowerShell tooling, device management or endpoint software. None of these is required, but tell us if you have them.
How we work
We work in writing. Every day closes with a short written update, decisions are recorded in the repo rather than remembered, and progress is visible in commits instead of meetings. You will need four hours of overlap with US Pacific mornings on most working days. We expect AI to be part of how you build, and we judge engineers on outcomes rather than hours.
This role is not for you if
You prefer a detailed spec handed to you before you start You would rather not speak to clients directly You see AI tools as optional or as a shortcut you hide You want to stay in one stack or one product for years
