About Sand
Sand Technologies is a global Physical AI company using data and AI to make critical industries work better. We partner with governments, cities and enterprises to improve how essential systems operate across healthcare, water, energy, telecommunications and infrastructure.
Our work delivers proven real-world impact. We have built AI systems that help manage London’s water supply, supported telecom network planning across hundreds of cities, and developed digital healthcare platforms serving tens of millions of people across Africa. From intelligent command centers to AI-powered infrastructure platforms, we help organizations sense, analyze and act in complex environments.
Our people are ambitious, curious and relentlessly practical. Our teams work alongside clients in the field, solving hard problems and deploying solutions that last. With colleagues across Africa, Europe, the UK and the US, we operate across the full stack - from research and engineering to deployment and capability building.
Our mission is simple: to harness AI to solve humanity’s most pressing challenges.
About the role
Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) are Sand’s frontline inside our most strategic customers; embedding directly within client teams to unlock data, building lightweight production solutions, and compressing time-to-value from months to weeks. This is not staff augmentation. This is a value-engineering role: hands-on, deeply technical, fast, and focused on proving ROI in real operational environments.
As an FDE, you will sit inside one of our US industries—Energy, Utilities, or Public Sector—and be deployed full-time on-site with a client. You will work shoulder-to-shoulder with operators, engineers, analysts, and executives to identify opportunities, access and shape data, prove value through rapid prototyping, and deploy solutions that drive measurable financial and operational outcomes.
Your work directly shapes commercial expansion, platform evolution, and the credibility of Sand in the most complex asset-heavy environments.
This role is ideal for a technically strong engineer or scientist who thrives in ambiguity, loves solving real-world problems in the field, and has the communication and resilience needed to earn trust inside demanding customer environments.
Specific Responsibilities
1. Value Engineering & Rapid Solution Delivery
- Embed directly inside the client to unlock data, map value streams, and build lightweight production-grade solutions.
- Execute rapid analysis, prototyping, and iterative validation using wrangling tools, secure sandboxes, and proven patterns.
- Deliver measurable outcomes within weeks—fast deployments, clear ROI proof points, and visible operational value.
2. Technical Execution & On-site Delivery
- Deploy models, dashboards, optimizers, and operational tools that solve high-value client problems in Energy, Utilities, or Public Sector.
- Troubleshoot friction: data access, workflows, security constraints, stakeholder blockers—removing obstacles in real time.
- Maintain a production mindset: reliability, iteration, and continuous improvement of deployed solutions.
3. Client Engagement & Trust Building
- Build deep trust with operators, engineers, and senior stakeholders through hands-on delivery—not slides.
- Translate complex technical problems into simple, actionable insights that drive adoption and operational use.
- Train users, institutionalize capabilities, and transfer knowledge so the client can sustain value.
4. Pattern Capture & Platform Feedback
- Document field patterns, reusable components, and validated workflows that feed into Sand’s product roadmap.
Work with Product Managers and Platform Engineering to generalize what works and escalate gaps in product capability.
- Ensure every deployment contributes to reusability, pattern libraries, and cross-vertical knowledge.
5. Growth Contribution (non-sales, but commercial)
- Identify expansion opportunities through on-the-ground insights and signal them to the MD and Solutions Director.
- Help shape new enterprise AI propositions with real-world field intelligence from Energy/Utilities/Public Sector operations.
- Support the Solutions Director in scoping high-value follow-on work.
Requirements - Essential
- 2–6 years of experience as a Data Scientist, Data Engineer, ML Engineer, or Software Engineer working with real datasets and operational environments.
- Experience deploying solutions in Energy (Oil & Gas, Power), Utilities (Water/Gas/Electric), or Public Sector strongly preferred.
- Proven ability to build prototypes and production-grade tools quickly, with minimal dependencies.
- Experience working directly with customers, operators, or business stakeholders in fast-paced environments.
- Comfort working independently on-site with high ambiguity and high accountability.
Technical Skills
- Strong coding ability (Python preferred) plus SQL, wrangling, and modern data tooling.
- Experience with APIs, cloud environments, data ingestion patterns, and analytical tooling.
- Ability to turn messy, real-world data into operational insights and deployed tools.
- Understanding of ML modeling, optimisation, or operations research is a plus (but not required).
- Experience with visualization tools and rapid prototyping frameworks.
Why this role matters
FDEs are the spearhead of Sand Technologies’ expansion in the US. They compress time-to-value, generate trust, and turn initial projects into multi-year strategic partnerships. Their insights directly shape the roadmap of our Industry Operating Systems and Co-Pilot Suites.
If you want to work on the frontier of enterprise AI—inside the most complex operational environments in the world—this is the role.
Personal Attributes
- Client Centricity & Integrity: We let Our Clients Run the Company, Surf Like Yvon to stay true to our values, and Play the Long Game with integrity.
- Collaboration and Inclusion: We live by Each One, Teach Ten and ensure Everybody is Welcome.
- Operational Excellence and Simplicity: We K.I.S.S. by keeping things simple while always striving to Raise the Bar.
- Action, Ownership, and Execution: We Decide, Get Stuff Done, and Do Hard Things with accountability.
- Growth, Innovation, and Resilience: We Choose Growth, Pioneer boldly, and remember There is No Failure.
Due to the considerable amount of virtual work and interaction with colleagues and customers in different physical locations internationally, it is essential that the successful applicant has the drive and ethic to succeed in working in small teams physically but in larger efforts virtually. Self-drive to communicate constantly using web collaboration and video conferencing is essential.
