Forward Deployed Data Engineer

We're looking for a Forward Deployed Data Engineer to join our team. As a Forward Deployed Data Engineer, you will be responsible for defining how our Forward Deployed Engineering function operates, including how engagements run, what the deliverables are, how the playbook works, what scales and what doesn't.

You will embed directly with our strategic accounts, large enterprises with complex data needs, often in financial services, insurance, and other regulated industries. You will work alongside their teams to understand their go-to-market challenges, then design and deliver bespoke intelligence applications that combine our third-party data with the customer's first-party data to drive real business outcomes.

You will own the engagement end-to-end: from discovery through deployment, from executive presentation through production code. You will work closely with our data and product teams to bring the full breadth of our data foundation to bear , company intelligence, contact data, buying signals, intent data, and specialized vertical datasets , assembled into purpose-built applications tailored to each customer's specific personas and workflows.

You will have access to incredible data, powerful infrastructure, and our most important customer relationships. What you build with them , and how you build it , will define the model going forward.

Responsibilities:

• Build the FDE Playbook
• Document what works: onboarding sequences, deployment patterns, integration frameworks, success metrics
• Feed field learnings back to product, engineering, and data teams to inform product direction and dataset priorities
• Own Strategic Customer Engagements End-to-End
• Serve as the primary technical point of contact for assigned strategic accounts
• Run discovery sessions, scope use cases, design solutions, build applications, and deploy them in the customer's environment
• You own the outcome , not just the delivery
• Deliver Custom Intelligence Applications
• Build bespoke 'single pane of glass' applications that unify our data with the customer's proprietary data
• These are purpose-built for specific personas and workflows , not configured off-the-shelf products
• Bridge Technical and Business Audiences
• Sit with the sales team
• Present to executive leadership
• Synthesize complex go-to-market data needs into clear, actionable proposals , then deliver the solution
• You're equally comfortable whiteboarding architecture with a data engineering team and presenting ROI to a CRO
• Drive Stickiness and Expansion
• Every application you build makes our data more deeply embedded in the customer's daily workflows
• Identify expansion opportunities as they emerge , new use cases, new personas, new datasets

Requirements:

• High Ownership, High Ambiguity Tolerance
• This role doesn't exist yet at ZoomInfo. You take ownership of outcomes , not tasks , and you're comfortable making judgment calls with incomplete information, building process where there is none, and figuring things out as you go
• Strong Software Engineering Fundamentals
• You write production-quality code
• You're proficient in Python, SQL, and modern web frameworks
• You're comfortable with APIs, data pipelines, cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), and building applications that real users depend on daily
• Familiarity with API tooling , GraphQL, REST, Postman, authentication patterns (JWT, OAuth) , is a plus; deep expertise isn't required, but you should be comfortable navigating and integrating against APIs quickly
• You work fluently in LLM-based development environments like Claude Code or Codex , these are core tools in how we build, not a nice-to-have
• Customer-Facing Communication
• You've worked directly with customers in a technical capacity , solutions engineering, consulting, technical account management, or a previous FDE role
• You can synthesize complex data needs for an executive audience and discuss architecture with an engineering team in the same meeting
• You're comfortable navigating enterprise environments with competing stakeholders and priorities
• Go-to-Market Data Familiarity (Preferred)
• Experience working with B2B data, CRM systems, sales/marketing tech stacks, or similar go-to-market infrastructure
• You understand what it means to operationalize data in a revenue context

Why This Role

• The mandate is clear. Driving data consumption and growth across ZoomInfo's strategic accounts is a top company priority
• We already have working prototypes, validated customer demand, and executive sponsorship
• The data team, product team, and infrastructure are in place
• What's needed is the person who executes
• Enterprise customer access. ZoomInfo's customer base includes market-leading GTM organizations at some of the largest enterprises in the world
• You'll be embedded with these teams, solving real problems with meaningful budgets and complex data needs
• Best-in-class data and infrastructure. ZoomInfo's data foundation, GTM Data Store, query infrastructure, and vertical dataset catalog give you the raw materials to build custom intelligence applications that aren't possible anywhere else