Forward Deployed Data Engineer
US$175,000 – US$200,000 / yr base salary
Posted 16 Sep 2026
Advertised as “Forward Deployed Data Engineer IV, Databricks”
BranchFactor Summary
The original posting with the fluff stripped out
- Level
- IV
- Management level
- Individual contributor
- Employment
- Remote
- Contract
- Full-time
- Visa sponsorship
- Not offered
| Base salary | US$175,000 – US$200,000 / yr |
|---|
Field of studyComputer Science, Information Technology (or related)
Study levelBachelor's
Field of studyEngineering, Mathematics, Science, Technology
Study levelMaster's
At E Source, we help utilities make sense of complexity in a rapidly changing landscape, and we’re looking for a Forward Deployed Data Engineer IV to help shape how that impact shows up in the world.
E Source is a research, data/analytics, and technology focused professional services firm focused exclusively on the Utility industry in North America. We help utilities target and serve their customers more effectively, enhance and optimize their grid, and leverage operating best practices and technologies to manage their business more effectively. Headquartered in Texas, we have 450+ employees across the US and Canada. Learn more at www.esource.com
As a Forward Deployed Data Engineer IV, you’ll join our AI and Data Engineering (AIDE) team and embed directly with utility clients to understand their hardest operational problems, then build and ship the systems that solve them: production code, in the client’s environment, used by their people, and measured against their outcomes. This role focuses on getting a utility’s data into a state where decisions, applications, and models can actually be built on it: governed, modeled, reliable, and owned by the client’s team after the engagement ends.
You’ll own engagements end to end, from technical discovery through architecture, build, deployment, and handover, with no handoff points in between. Engagements move quickly: the expectation is trusted data flowing in the client’s environment within weeks, then hardened toward production based on how their teams actually use it. You’ll work closely with client data and IT teams and executives, and with E Source machine learning engineers, software engineers, data scientists, and consultants to deliver data platforms and data products for clients and to bring field learnings back into our products and practices.
In this role, you will:
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Embed with utility clients to design and build production data platforms end to end: ingestion, transformation, orchestration, quality, governance, and serving, using Databricks, Spark, Python, SQL, and Amazon Web Services (AWS)
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Own the technical architecture of each engagement and defend it to client architects, security teams, and platform owners
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Run technical discovery independently, separating the problem as stated from the underlying need, and say so when the requested solution is the wrong one
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Deliver a working, useful system early in each engagement, typically within the first few weeks, then iterate toward production hardening. Tactical solutions are legitimate; undocumented or unowned ones are not
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Lead migrations from legacy warehouses and on-premises systems to modern platforms, including undocumented dependencies