Forward Deployed Engineer

PrivateFinancePartners GmbH; Greater London; On-site; GBP 80,000 - GBP 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology firm in Greater London is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to bridge product and customer workflows. You will drive high-impact implementations, redesign workflows, and ensure that clients integrate our software into their daily operations. Candidates should have 3+ years of experience and outstanding communication skills in English and German. The position offers competitive salary, equity options, and a dynamic work environment.

Benefits

Competitive salary

Equity options

Learning budget (CHF 1k)

25 days paid vacation

Qualifications

• 3+ years of professional experience, ideally as a founding engineer or in an early-stage startup environment.
• Confident in engaging with C-suite and senior stakeholders; peer in the boardroom.
• Readiness to travel to client sites for successful implementation.

Responsibilities

• Partner directly with large real estate owners to understand their existing processes.
• Redesign how customers work by mapping out their data and workflows.
• Own the lifecycle of our most complex deployments.

Skills

Outstanding written and verbal communication skills in English & German

Hands-on proficiency with APIs, data modeling, and system architecture

Ability to engage with C-suite and senior stakeholders

Experience operating in high-friction enterprise environments

Job description

Overview

As a Forward Deployed Engineer at Optiml, you will sit at the intersection of product, engineering, and our most strategic customers. You’ll work directly with large real estate owners and consultancies, embedding into their workflows to ensure our software becomes a core part of how they operate—not just a tool they deploy.

Your mission is to drive successful, high-impact implementations: deeply understand customer processes, redesign workflows around our platform, and translate complex, messy requirements into scalable technical and product solutions. You’ll own the end-to-end lifecycle of complex deployments, from early scoping and prototyping through to adoption and long-term success.

This role combines hands-on technical execution with strong customer and stakeholder leadership. You will act as a trusted partner to senior client teams while working closely with Optiml’s Product, Engineering, and Sales functions to generalize insights into our broader product roadmap.

We’re looking for a high-agency engineer with experience operating in ambiguous, high-friction enterprise environments. This is not a support or delivery role. If you thrive at the intersection of technology, customer impact, and ownership—and enjoy doing whatever it takes to make software truly stick—this is an opportunity to shape how Optiml scales with its most important customers.

Tasks

Responsibilities

• Embed with Real Estate Giants: Partner directly with large real estate owners and consultancies to understand their existing processes. You will be the bridge bringing our software into the heart of their daily operations.
• Workflow Architecture: Don\'t just implement software - redesign how our customers work. You will map out their data and workflows to identify exactly where our product fits, replacing legacy manual processes with automated, scalable solutions.
• Master the "Scoping" Mindset: Act as the first line of defense against scope creep. Deeply question requirements from customers to distinguish between what they ask for and what they need.
• Drive Implementation Success: Own the lifecycle of our most complex deployments. You are responsible for ensuring our software becomes indispensable to the customer’s team, not just technically integrated but culturally adopted.
• Translate & Generalize: Translate chaotic feedback from non-technical stakeholders into structured, generalized product roadmap items for the Product team.
• Accelerate Feedback Loops: Brainstorm, implement & test early prototypes directly with customers to iterate rapidly, while ensuring we build features that solve actual industry pain points.

Who we are looking for

• Embrace Challenges: You prioritize speed and flexibility. You are adept at navigating the slow-moving structures of large enterprises while maintaining startup momentum.
• Push The Limits: You have "high agency." You don’t wait for permission or resources; you are self-driven and willing to do whatever it takes—from cleaning dirty data to training a skepticism consultancy team—to unblock a customer.
• Inspire Others: You act as a stabilizer during tense customer situations, enhancing morale and collaboration across Sales, Engineering, and our clients.
• Champion The Customer: Your meticulous attention to detail ensures that even the most demanding customers feel heard, understood, and supported.
• Take Ownership: Think out of the box and do what it takes to achieve the best customer outcomes.

Requirements

You have:

• 3+ years of professional experience, ideally as a founding engineer or in an early-stage startup environment.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills in English & German.
• A proven track record of deploying software within the intricate, high-friction workflows of large-scale enterprises.
• Confident in engaging with C-suite and senior stakeholders; you are a peer in the boardroom and a partner in the field.
• Hands-on proficiency with APIs, data modeling, and system architecture. You can navigate deep technical discussions to earn engineering respect and accurately scope integrations.
• Readiness to travel to client sites to ensure successful implementation and relationship building.

Nice to have

• Experience in the Finance, Real Estate or Construction industries.
• Experience working at or with major strategy/technical consultancies.
• Experience moving a product from "startup" to "scale-up"

Benefits

🌍 Impact: Play a critical role in scaling a company transforming how real estate decarbonizes.

⚙️ Ownership: Build and own the operational backbone of a fast-growing startup.

🚀 Growth: Work closely with an exceptional leadership team and gain exposure to all company functions.

🏆 Culture: Join a mission-driven, high-performance, and collaborative team.💡 Benefits: Competitive salary, equity options, learning budget (CHF 1k), and additional insurance support. 25 days paid vacation.