Forward Deployed Engineer

About Motorq

Motorq is the leading connected vehicle intelligence platform, processing over 5 million trip miles and 500 million data points per day. We aggregate data directly from automotive OEM APIs — no hardware required — and deliver it as structured insights and automated workflows to fleet operators, lenders, rental companies, and automotive partners.

Headquartered in the SF Bay Area with offices in Chennai, Bengaluru, and Seattle, Motorq has raised a $40M+ Series B and is growing rapidly across new geographies and use cases. We're part of the Stanford StartX community and deeply partnered with leading automotive OEMs including GM, Ford, Toyota, Stellantis, Volkswagen, Volvo, Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and Rivian.

The Role

Some of the most important moments in a customer relationship happen in the room — when a demo lands perfectly, when a prototype makes an abstract capability suddenly real, or when a workshop shifts how a customer thinks about what's possible with connected vehicle data. The Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) at Motorq lives for those moments.

The FDE is a technical generalist and customer-facing engineer who operates across both new business and existing accounts. On the sales side, you partner with Account Executives to demonstrate Motorq's platform compellingly, run technical discovery, and build custom prototypes that bring prospective customers' specific use cases to life. On the customer side, you work alongside Strategic Customer Executives and the Customer Success team to drive deep product adoption, lead technical workshops, and evangelize Motorq's full capabilities — including our growing AI and agentic product layer — to users and technical stakeholders within our most important accounts.

This role requires a rare combination: the technical depth to build and demonstrate real solutions, the communication skills to explain complex ideas to non-technical audiences, and the customer empathy to understand what someone actually needs before proposing how to solve it. You will travel regularly to be present where it matters most — at customer sites, workshops, and industry events.

What You'll Do

• Support pre-sales cycles by leading technical discovery, delivering compelling platform demonstrations, and building custom proof-of-concept prototypes tailored to prospective customers' specific use cases and data environments.
• Design and facilitate technical workshops with prospective and existing customers — helping them understand Motorq's data model, API capabilities, AI features, and integration patterns in the context of their own operations.
• Develop reusable demo environments, sample applications, and prototype templates that showcase Motorq's platform across key use cases — fleet maintenance, driver safety, fuel management, vehicle recovery, EV health, and more.
• Work alongside Strategic Customer Executives and Technical CSMs to drive adoption within existing accounts — identifying underutilized capabilities, removing technical barriers, and helping customers unlock more value from the platform.
• Evangelize Motorq's AI and agentic product capabilities — including LLM-powered insight engines and automated fleet workflows — to both technical and business audiences.
• Serve as a technical bridge between customers and Motorq's Product and Engineering teams — surfacing real-world use cases, feeding implementation feedback into the roadmap, and helping shape what gets built next.
• Contribute to Motorq's external technical presence — developer documentation, technical blog posts, conference talks, and community engagement — helping establish Motorq as the go-to platform for connected vehicle intelligence.
• Travel regularly to customer sites across the US to deliver workshops, support proof-of-concept engagements, and strengthen relationships with technical counterparts.

Who You Are

• Technically deep and customer-facing — you are as comfortable writing a Python script to pull data from an API as you are presenting that output to a VP of Fleet Operations.
• A builder — you prototype quickly, think on your feet, and find satisfaction in turning a customer's question into a working demo within hours.
• An evangelist — you genuinely believe in the value of connected vehicle data and you communicate that belief with clarity and enthusiasm, at any technical level.
• Curious and adaptive — every customer environment is different, and you enjoy figuring out how Motorq fits into systems and workflows you've never seen before.
• A strong communicator — your written documentation is clear, your workshop facilitation is engaging, and your explanations are calibrated to the audience in front of you.
• Road-ready — you're energized by customer travel, not fatigued by it, and you understand that presence at a customer site often changes what's possible.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in a technical, customer-facing role — solutions engineering, forward deployed engineering, technical consulting, or similar.
• Proficiency in at least one scripting or programming language and comfort working with REST APIs, JSON, and data querying tools (SQL, Snowflake, or similar).
• Familiarity with data science concepts — including data pipelines, exploratory analysis, statistical reasoning, and working with large structured datasets — sufficient to engage credibly with data engineering and analytics counterparts.
• Experience building demos, prototypes, or proof-of-concept applications in a sales or customer success context.
• Familiarity with AI/ML concepts and tools — LLMs, agents, data pipelines — and the ability to demonstrate AI-powered features credibly to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Background in fleet management, telematics, automotive software, IoT, or connected vehicle platforms is a strong plus.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills — able to produce clear technical documentation and lead engaging workshops with diverse stakeholder groups.
• Willingness and ability to travel regularly (approximately 8–10 business days per month) to customer sites across the US.

Logistics

• Full-time role, remote-first.
• Hybrid if based in the SF Bay Area.
• Regular customer travel expected — approximately 8–10 business days per month across the US.
• Quarterly visits to the SF Bay Area for team meetings and planning.

Compensation & Benefits

• Base salary: $130,000–$160,000 per year.
• Performance bonus of up to 10% based on individual and company performance.
• Equity participation.
• Full benefits: medical, dental, vision, 401(k), paid parental leave.