What’s the role?
As a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer at Bilt, you're the technical lead who takes enterprise partner integrations through their full lifecycle — from initial scope and solution design, through hands-on build and integration, into go-live and ongoing maintenance and expansion. This isn't a people-management role: you're the person embedded in the details of each engagement, personally building features, debugging cross-system issues, and working shoulder-to-shoulder with each partner's engineering team to get integrations live and keep them running. You'll take solution designs from Bilt's Solutions Engineering team and turn them into real, scoped, working implementations — and you stay engaged with an engagement well past go-live, not just through the exciting build phase.
In this role, you will:
- Personally own partner integration projects through their full lifecycle — scope, solution-design handoff, build/integration, go-live, and ongoing maintenance/expansion — rather than handing off after one phase
- Write clean, production-quality code — primarily Java — building the actual features and integrations each partner needs
- Take solution designs from Bilt's Solutions Engineering team and translate them into scoped, buildable implementation plans, surfacing gaps or pushing back on the design where needed
- Embed directly with partner engineering teams as the primary technical counterpart, from junior developers to tech leads
- Debug and troubleshoot complex, cross-system issues spanning Bilt's APIs, partner systems, webhooks, and data flows — often in real time on calls with partner engineers
- Stay engaged with an engagement through its maintenance and expansion phase — the ongoing work after go-live is treated as a core part of the job, not an afterthought
- Build and maintain developer-facing resources: API documentation, integration guides, sample code
- Leverage AI-powered dev tools (Claude, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) as a core workflow multiplier
- Travel to partner sites as needed across your active engagements
- As an early senior hire in this function, the technical patterns you set — API design conventions, code quality bar, documentation practices — will shape how future FDEs and contractors work, though this happens through example, not people-management authority
In terms of qualifications, we’re seeking:
- 5–8+ years hands-on engineering experience, with a track record of taking partner/client implementation projects through the full lifecycle — scope, solution design, build/integration, and maintenance — across more than one engagement over your career
- Strong Java proficiency; Spring Boot/REST experience a plus
- Deep, hands-on API/auth fluency: OAuth/OIDC, webhooks, versioning, edge-case reasoning
- Real, direct experience building features or integrations by working hands-on with a client or partner's engineering team — not just internal teams
- Comfortable taking a solution design from someone else (e.g. a Solutions Architect) and scoping/adjusting it into an actual implementation plan
- Excellent technical communication across audiences from junior developers to CTOs
- Genuine, describable AI-assisted dev workflow
- Comfortable staying on an engagement long after go-live, owning maintenance and expansion rather than shipping and moving straight to the next thing
- Willingness to travel frequently and on short notice across active engagements
- Bonus: Experience informally mentoring/technically guiding other engineers on a shared project (not required); fintech, payments, POS, or loyalty/subscription platform experience; Cloud (GCP preferred), CI/CD, containerization, IaC.
Benefits:
- Compensation - We offer a competitive salary with a meaningful stake in the company via equity and our performance bonus program
- Health insurance for you (& your loved ones) from day one - Enjoy a One Medical Membership, wellness stipends, family programs and more, on us. We’ve got you and your family covered from day one.
- 401k plan with a match - Retirement may feel more like a pipe dream than a reality but we’re here to help you get there.
- Commuter FSAs - We believe the best ideas come from being together in one place. We just don’t think getting there should be so expensive.
- UNLIMITED PTO - Because we believe that working hard shouldn’t mean always working. Take time for yourself as often as you need it.
- Exclusive Employee only Bilt Points - We give our employees unique opportunities to earn points throughout their time at Bilt.
- Team Events - We believe in human connection so we hold events to help our employees break from the monotony of the typical work week.
At Bilt Rewards, we believe in transparency and we do our best to make sure the company and our candidates are on the same page as it relates to compensation. In addition to posting salary ranges for our open roles, candidates should expect to be asked about compensation expectations and requirements early on in their interview process. Our goal is to highlight when expectations and Bilt’s salary range may be out of sync, and work with the candidate to determine whether it makes sense to continue conversations.
We are considering candidates with differing levels of expertise for this position. Leveling will be based upon your experience and performance in the interview process.
Where a new hire falls within a range will be based on their skills and experience, and how these competencies compare across other employees in the same role. Bilt's bands are designed to allow for individual compensation growth within the role. As such, new hires typically start at the lower end of the range. Bilt Rewards performance and outcomes - should you join the company, you will have the opportunity to grow your salary over time.
The salary range for a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer is $200,000 - $280,000 (based on YOE/level), and you will be eligible for equity and an annual performance-based bonus.