Forward Deployed Engineer

Base Salary Range: $110000 - $170000

Job Title: Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) 
Job ID: 88175
Location: Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Hamilton, Waterloo, Chicago, Canada - Remote w/ travel to nearest location

Overview:
We builds AI-powered vision and predictive systems for real-world manufacturing environments. Our technology sits at the intersection of computer vision, machine learning, and industrial operations - turning production lines into intelligent, self-monitoring systems. We deploy directly into our customers’ operational technology, IT, and cloud stacks - on the line, on the floor, and in production. Our applications for defect detection, label verification, product tracking, and counting run on embedded NVIDIA Jetson platforms at the edge, communicate with customer PLCs, and write to our cloud portal where operators see their detections in real time. About 20 active manufacturing clients across Quebec, Ontario, and the United States. The accounts span multiple industrial sectors: wood processing, plastic extrusion, food production, construction materials, and more. All our clients are growing, all demand more. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you embed with our most strategic manufacturing accounts and own the full lifecycle of our AI deployments. You are the primary technical contact for the customer, a trusted advisor who codes side-by-side with their operations and IT teams, and the two-way translator between shop-floor reality and our product roadmap. 


What you will be doing:
Customer Deployment and OT Integration

• Embed with two to four manufacturing accounts as their primary technical contact for AI deployments

• Lead end-to-end deployments of our AI vision systems at customer facilities - from shop-floor scoping through production handoff

• Integrate us with the customer’s full operational stack: industrial communication protocols (OPC-UA, Modbus TCP, PLCs), edge AI inference (NVIDIA Jetson), customer ERP, and customer cloud data environment

• Own the deployment lifecycle: software configuration, system validation, integration testing, and production handoff with a formal handover artifact for the LTS team

• Troubleshoot software, networking, and integration issues in live production environments

• Document deployment configurations, system behaviors, and best practices

Technical Customer Engagement

• Serve as the primary technical point of contact during and after deployment

• Train customer operators and engineers on-site and remotely, in French and English

• Participate in occasional pre-sales calls and scoping sessions alongside the sales team

• Translate AI value to non-specialists: model performance, accuracy thresholds, ROI in business terms

• Build working relationships with customer technical leads for long-term adoption

Solution Development and Data Flywheel

• Build, deploy, and iterate production AI deployments end-to-end - you own the customer-side data flywheel: edge ? cloud data capture, trained-model deployment to edge, production inference monitoring, and the feedback loop with the client

• Shape the core product roadmap - your field experience directly informs what we build next: stability improvements, new platform capabilities, and reusable solutions that scale across all customers. Custom work you do at one customer often becomes a standard feature for the next.

• Codify deployment patterns and contribute to internal tooling so each mandate makes the platform stronger and the next deployment ships faster

• Support data collection and annotation efforts at customer sites when needed

What you must have:

• 6+ years of experience combining production software engineering with industrial automation and/or applied AI

• Strong production Python and proven track record shipping systems to customer infrastructure - you have deployed real systems that run in front of real users, not just prototypes

• Hands-on experience with industrial communication and/or edge AI deployment - at least one of: OPC-UA / Modbus / PLC integration, Jetson or equivalent edge platforms, GenICam / industrial vision systems

• Cloud experience - comfortable deploying and operating services in cloud environments (AWS / Azure / GCP)

• Strong software fundamentals: Python, Linux, Docker, Git, comfort deploying to edge hardware

• Solid networking fundamentals (TCP/IP, VLANs, firewalls) as they apply to industrial deployments

• Customer-facing seniority - you can hold the line in a discovery workshop with operators, an architecture review with the IT/OT director, and an executive briefing with the plant manager, in the same week

• Bilingual French and English - you can run a discovery workshop in French and write a technical design document in English without losing precision

• High agency, bias for action - you operate well in ambiguity and ship production code on customer infrastructure

Nice to have:

• Direct experience deploying AI/ML models in production on customer infrastructure

• Industrial automation experience at large (PLC integration, controls, manufacturing systems)

• Industrial vision: GenICam / GigE cameras (Basler, Lucid, Cognex, Keyence), OpenCV, optical intuition (lens selection, lighting, specular reflection mitigation)

• Specific ERP integration: SAP, Oracle, or similar

• Jetson AGX (flash, BSP, Docker edge, embedded Linux)

• AI/ML inference pipelines and real-time systems

• Background in mobile robotics, drones, ROV/AUV, or remotely piloted vehicles - shares the systems / embedded / perception / field-integration DNA

• Background in food and beverage, CPG, automotive, packaging, or wood processing

• Experience in a startup or high-growth environment where you have worn multiple hats

Salary/Rate Range: $110,000.00 - $170,000.00


Thank you for your interest in this opportunity. If you are selected to move forward in the process, we will contact you directly. If you do not hear from us, we encourage you to continue visiting our website for other roles that may be a good fit.


For more information about TEEMA and to consider other career opportunities, please visit our website at www.teemagroup.com