Staff Forward Deployed Software Engineer
Posted 2 days ago
The role in short
Lead medium-to-large scale software engineering projects by embedding with customers to design, build, and deploy production-grade digital identity solutions and integrations.
About SpruceID
SpruceID builds privacy-preserving, standards-based digital identity and credentialing solutions that give individuals control of their information while enabling governments and enterprises to deliver secure, interoperable services. We partner with public-sector organizations to modernize how identity is issued, verified, and used.
About the Role
As a Staff Forward Deployed Software Engineer, you will play a key role in delivering SpruceID's digital identity solutions to our customers and partners. You will lead medium- to large-scale technical projects, working closely with internal engineering teams and external stakeholders to ensure successful implementation and delivery.
This role combines hands-on software engineering, technical project leadership, and stakeholder collaboration. You'll work directly with customers to understand their requirements, translate business needs into technical solutions, and coordinate across teams to drive projects forward.
The ideal candidate brings strong technical expertise, experience independently leading complex engineering projects, and the ability to build trusted relationships with technical and non-technical stakeholders. You should be comfortable navigating ambiguity, managing competing priorities, and taking ownership of technical outcomes. Experience with digital identity, security, privacy, and credentialing technologies is highly valuable.
This job is fully remote within the US.
What You'll Do
- Lead medium- to large-scale software engineering projects from requirements gathering and technical planning through implementation, deployment, and ongoing maintenance.
- Work closely with internal and external stakeholders to understand requirements, align priorities, manage expectations, and ensure successful project delivery.
- Own technical design and implementation decisions, ensuring solutions are scalable, secure, maintainable, and aligned with customer needs.
- Collaborate with engineering, product, and delivery teams to coordinate dependencies, resolve blockers, and deliver high-quality solutions.
- Serve as a key technical point of contact for customers and partners, communicating project progress, technical decisions, risks, and recommendations.
- Architect, develop, and maintain backend systems, full-stack web applications, and integrations supporting SpruceID's digital identity solutions.
- Translate complex customer requirements into clear technical specifications and actionable implementation plans.
- Proactively identify technical risks, project dependencies, and opportunities to improve delivery efficiency.
- Support integrations with customer infrastructure, third-party services, and legacy systems.
- Contribute to code reviews, technical documentation, testing, and engineering best practices.
- Provide technical guidance and mentorship to other engineers, fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing.
- Partner with internal teams to share customer feedback and contribute to product and platform improvements.
Qualifications
- 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, including designing, building, and maintaining production-grade applications.
- Proven experience independently leading medium- to large-scale engineering projects, coordinating multiple teams and driving technical initiatives from planning through delivery.
- Strong stakeholder management experience, including working directly with customers, gathering requirements, aligning expectations, and communicating effectively across technical and non-technical audiences.
- Proficiency in one or more statically typed programming languages such as Rust, Go, Java, or C#.
- Strong understanding of software architecture, backend development, APIs, system integrations, and cloud infrastructure.
- Experience making technical design decisions, evaluating tradeoffs, and solving complex engineering challenges.
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams, including engineering, product, and delivery.
- Ability to navigate ambiguity, manage competing priorities, and take ownership of outcomes with minimal oversight.
- Excellent problem-solving, communication, and organizational skills.
- Experience working directly with customers or external partners in technical delivery or implementation environments.
- Based in the US and willing to travel as needed to support customer engagements (should not be much).
Bonus Qualifications
- Experience with digital identity, verifiable credentials, digital wallets, or identity verification solutions.
- Knowledge of privacy-preserving technologies, authentication protocols, security standards, and interoperability frameworks.
- Experience working with public-sector organizations, government agencies, or highly regulated industries.
- Familiarity with SpruceID's technology ecosystem and standards-based digital identity solutions.
- Experience leading complex integrations involving multiple systems, vendors, or external partners.
- Familiarity with accessibility, compliance, and legacy system modernization.
- Experience mentoring engineers or providing technical leadership across project teams.
- Background in forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, technical consulting, or other customer-facing engineering roles.
Equal Opportunity
At SpruceID, we value diversity of perspectives and backgrounds. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or veteran status.
Prep for this interview
5 questions likely to come up at SpruceID, each matched to a line in this posting.
- 1Discovery and scoping
They wrote: “Work closely with internal and external stakeholders to understand requirements, align priorities, manage expectations, and ensure successful project delivery.”
How do you decide what to build first when a customer wants ten things?
How to answer
Why they ask: FDEs have limited weeks per customer. This tests judgment about value, effort and risk.
- Score each request by business value and by effort, with the customer in the room
- Pick one item that proves value fast and unblocks later work
- Write down what's out of scope so it doesn't creep back in
- Revisit the list after the first release, with real usage data
Tip: Show a simple way to rank the list and name what you'd leave out on purpose.
- 2Integrations and APIs
They wrote: “Strong understanding of software architecture, backend development, APIs, system integrations, and cloud infrastructure.”
Walk me through connecting our product to a customer's internal system that has no documentation.
How to answer
Why they ask: This happens weekly in the job. They want a calm, step-by-step method.
- Find who owns the system and get read access to a test environment
- Watch real traffic or logs to learn the data shapes
- Build a thin adapter with logging around every call
- Agree on how failures get reported, and who fixes what
Tip: Talk about finding the owner of the system first. The code is the easy part.
- 3Coding
They wrote: “Proficiency in one or more statically typed programming languages such as Rust, Go, Java, or C#.”
Build a small in-memory cache. Then add expiry. Then a size limit.
How to answer
Why they ask: Staged exercises show how your code holds up when requirements change mid-interview, like at a customer.
- Start with get and set on a dictionary, plus tests
- Store an expiry time with each value and check it on read
- Track use order and evict the least recently used entry when full
- Say what you'd change for many threads or many machines
Tip: Keep the first version simple and well tested so the next stage is a small change.
- 4Ownership and working with customers
They wrote: “Ability to navigate ambiguity, manage competing priorities, and take ownership of outcomes with minimal oversight.”
Tell me about a project where the requirements kept changing. What did you do?
How to answer
Why they ask: Ambiguity is the norm. They want proof you can keep moving without a clear spec.
- The project and why requirements kept moving
- What you did to pin them down (short demos, written decisions)
- The trade-offs you made to keep shipping
- The result, with a number if you have one
Tip: Show how you reduced the change, beyond how you coped with it.
- 5Cloud, deployment and security
They wrote: “Knowledge of privacy-preserving technologies, authentication protocols, security standards, and interoperability frameworks.”
The customer's security team sends a 200-question review. How do you handle it?
How to answer
Why they ask: Security reviews often block deals. FDEs help get through them.
- Start from your company's standard answers (SOC 2 report, past reviews)
- Answer clearly; don't oversell
- Bring in your security team for anything you're unsure of
- Keep the new answers for the next customer
Tip: Reuse past answers, flag honest gaps, and offer a call for the hard questions.
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