Principal Forward Deployment Engineer

At T-Mobile, we invest in YOU!  Our Total Rewards Package ensures that employees get the same big love we give our customers.  All team members receive a competitive base salary and compensation package - this is Total Rewards. Employees enjoy multiple wealth-building opportunities through our annual stock grant, employee stock purchase plan, 401(k), and access to free, year-round money coaches. That’s how we’re UNSTOPPABLE for our employees!

Are you ready to join the Un-carrier movement?
This role is the technical foundation the rest of T-Mobile's Forward Deployment Engineering practice builds on. As Principal Engineer, Forward Deployment, you set the technical direction for agentic AI delivery across every FDE domain, take on the hardest problems the practice encounters, and build the shared components and standards that let the rest of the team move faster. You lead through influence and technical credibility — not through a management chain — and your scope spans the entire FDE portfolio.
You'll stay hands-on: writing and reviewing production code is core to the job. You'll also shape T-Mobile's broader AI direction alongside platform, data, and infrastructure leadership. Performance is measured on validated ROI across the FDE portfolio — not activity, tickets, or deployments shipped. This role reports to the Senior Manager or Senior Director, Agentic Automation & FDE.
Success looks like an FDE practice that ships faster because of the foundations you built, makes better technical decisions because of the standards you set, and takes on harder problems because you've already cleared the way.
If you want to help bring agentic AI to T-Mobile in a way that's fast, reliable, and built to last — we'd like to hear from you.

Job Responsibilities:

• Set the technical direction for agentic AI delivery across the practice, keeping the team well positioned as the model and tooling landscape evolves.
• Establish the architectural approaches the practice builds on, and shape which problems are worth solving with agentic AI.
• Drive delivery consistency across domains so quality holds regardless of who is deployed. Step in where engagements need senior technical help.
• Build and maintain the shared technical foundations the rest of the team delivers on. Generalize what works in one domain so others can move faster.
• Take on the most complex technical challenges the practice encounters, staying hands-on while keeping cost, performance, and reliability in view
• Advise practice leadership on where delivery capacity is best applied and raise concerns early when expected return won't justify the effort.
• Grow the technical capability of the FDE team. Review architecture and code across domains, calibrate standards among senior engineers, and partner with practice leadership on the technical bar for hiring and progression.
• Build sound data handling, privacy, and security practices into the solutions the practice delivers, in line with T-Mobile data governance standards including CPNI and PII.

Education and Work Experience:

• Bachelor’s Degree Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Science, or related technical field. Master’s Degree preferred. Relevant equivalent experience accepted. (Required)
• 7-10+ years production engineering experience, including 3+ years deploying LLM-based systems in production and 2+ years delivering agentic or multi-agent systems. Track record of AI solutions that measurably improved a business outcome. (Required)
• Demonstrated experience setting technical direction for a team or practice: defining standards others follow, guiding the architecture of other engineers, and developing engineers. (Required)
• Prior experience in a solutions engineering, forward deployment, or embedded technical role at a high-growth AI or cloud company. Experience navigating stakeholder environments from frontline operators through C-suite. (Preferred)

Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Production Python Engineering (proficiency in Go, TypeScript, or Java).
• LLM System Architecture (RAG, prompt engineering, agent orchestration, hallucination mitigation at scale)
• Data Engineering & Integration
• Cloud-Native Deployment & MLOps (AWS primary; Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, vector databases, observability)
• Organizational Technical Leadership
• Technical & Portfolio Judgment
• Data Security & Privacy (CPNI, PII)

Preferred Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Telecom Domain Experience (care, retail, billing, network operations, or supply chain)
• Applied Machine Learning & Data Science
• Conversational AI, Intelligent Automation, or RPA
• Regulated Data Environments (CPNI, PII, PCI, or HIPAA)
• Hiring & Technical Assessment Contribution
• Depth across NLP, embeddings, transformer architectures, and foundation models

• At least 18 years of age

• Legally authorized to work in the United States

Travel:

Travel Required (Yes/No): Yes

DOT Regulated:

DOT Regulated Position (Yes/No):No

Safety Sensitive Position (Yes/No):No

Base Pay Range: $164,500 - $296,700

Corporate Bonus Target: 20%

The pay range above is the general base pay range for a successful candidate in the role. The successful candidate’s actual pay will be based on various factors, such as work location, qualifications, and experience, so the actual starting pay will vary within this range.

At T-Mobile, employees in regular, non-temporary roles are eligible for an annual bonus or periodic sales incentive or bonus, based on their role. Most Corporate employees are eligible for a year-end bonus based on company and/or individual performance and which is set at a percentage of the employee’s eligible earnings in the prior year. Certain positions in Customer Care are eligible for monthly bonuses based on individual and/or team performance. To find the pay range for this role based on hiring location, https://paylookup.t-mobile.com/paylookup?reqID=REQ366888¶dox=1

At T-Mobile, our benefits exemplify the spirit of One Team, Together! A big part of how we care for one another is working to ensure our benefits evolve to meet the needs of our team members. Full and part-time employees have access to the same benefits when eligible. We cover all of the bases, offering medical, dental and vision insurance, a flexible spending account, 401(k), employee stock grants, employee stock purchase plan, paid time off and up to 12 paid holidays - which total about 4 weeks for new full-time employees and about 2.5 weeks for new part-time employees annually - paid parental and family leave, family building benefits, back-up care, enhanced family support, childcare subsidy, tuition assistance, college coaching, short- and long-term disability, voluntary AD&D coverage, voluntary accident coverage, voluntary life insurance, voluntary disability insurance, and voluntary long-term care insurance. We don't stop there - eligible employees can also receive mobile service & home internet discounts, pet insurance, and access to commuter and transit programs! To learn about T-Mobile’s amazing benefits, check out www.t-mobilebenefits.com.

Never stop growing!
As part of the T-Mobile team, you know the Un-carrier doesn’t have a corporate ladder–it’s more like a jungle gym of possibilities! We love helping our employees grow in their careers, because it’s that shared drive to aim high that drives our business and our culture forward. By applying for this career opportunity, you’re living our values while investing in your career growth–and we applaud it. You’re unstoppable!
T-Mobile USA, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All decisions concerning the employment relationship will be made without regard to age, race, ethnicity, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, religious affiliation, marital status, citizenship status, veteran status, the presence of any physical or mental disability, or any other status or characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. Discrimination, retaliation or harassment based upon any of these factors is wholly inconsistent with how we do business and will not be tolerated.
Talent comes in all forms at the Un-carrier. If you are an individual with a disability and need reasonable accommodation at any point in the application or interview process, please let us know by emailing [email protected] or calling 1-844-873-9500. Please note, this contact channel is not a means to apply for or inquire about a position and we are unable to respond to non-accommodation related requests.