Entrylevel Forward Deployed Engineer Jobs in Virginia

At Epicor, we're building the world's first cognitive ERP - and the fastest way to prove it is to put builders directly in front of the customers who run on it.

As a Product Developer, Forward Deployed Engineering, you will embed with Epicor customers, learn their operations from the inside, and build working solutions to real business problems. You will go beyond demos and proof-of-concepts: you will write production-grade software, connect it to live ERP environments, and deliver measurable value - often in days, not quarters.

This is not a consulting role, and it is not sales engineering. You will not hand off a spec and walk away. You will own the problem end to end, working with Product Managers, UX Designers, engineers, customer stakeholders, and operators from discovery through deployment. You will also bring what you learn in the field directly back into Epicor's product teams to shape the future of AI and agentic ERP.

This role offers real ownership, direct customer access, and a mandate to move fast.

Why This Role Is Different

"Forward deployed" means operating close to the point of action, not from a distant base. Instead of building solutions in isolation and shipping them over the wall, you will go where the problems actually live: the shop floor, warehouse, distribution center, retail back office, and other operational environments where Epicor customers run their businesses.

Getting a workflow running in a sandbox is the easy part. The real work is navigating legacy data models, long-standing integrations, SSO and security reviews, data-residency and compliance requirements, and the human reality of earning trust with the customer's engineers, operators, and leadership. These problems are not solved by prompt engineering alone. They are solved by builders who can work on-site, understand production constraints, and ship software that actually works in the customer's environment.

Agentic AI is also dissolving the traditional boundaries between Engineering, Product, UX, and Data Science. We are looking for someone who does not stay confined to one lane. You should bring the engineering depth to ship production code, the empathy to design workflows real users will adopt, the technical judgment to make sound architecture trade-offs, and the presence to challenge assumptions - respectfully and with evidence - when the situation calls for it.

What You'll Be Doing:

• Embed with customers. Work on-site and virtually with Epicor customers to understand their operations, observe real workflows, identify pain points, and separate symptoms from root causes.

• Build working solutions. Write production-grade software that solves customer problems in real environments. Integrate with Epicor platforms, customer systems, data sources, APIs, identity infrastructure, and cloud environments.

• Own delivery end to end. Lead the technical path from discovery and architecture through deployment, adoption, and post-go-live iteration. You will own the outcome, not just the handoff.

• Break through integration barriers. Navigate legacy systems, ETL pipelines, enterprise SSO, security requirements, regulatory constraints, data-residency needs, and production access challenges.

• Turn field work into product value. Translate customer learnings into reusable patterns, connectors, platform capabilities, and roadmap insights that make future deployments faster and stronger.

• Move quickly from insight to artifact. Prototype rapidly, put solutions in front of users, gather feedback, and iterate directly with the customer.

• Earn and maintain trust. Build strong relationships with customer engineers, operators, executives, and internal Epicor teams. Manage expectations, communicate clearly, and keep the work focused on business outcomes.

What You'll Likely Bring:

• Builder mindset. You take ownership, challenge the status quo, and drive toward working solutions. You would rather build the thing than write a memo about building the thing.

• Engineering depth with customer empathy. You can write real production code and understand the human workflow on the other side of the software.

• Comfort with ambiguity. You can be dropped into a large, poorly defined, real-world problem and make progress with incomplete information. You decompose problems, prioritize, and course-correct quickly.

• AI-native thinking. You understand LLMs, RAG, agents, and AI-powered software deeply enough to architect solutions, evaluate trade-offs, and build appropriate evaluation, observability, and guardrails into what you ship.

• Strong communication and executive presence. You can explain technical direction clearly to engineers, operators, business stakeholders, and executives.

• Ability to disagree well. You can push back on customers or internal teams when needed, using evidence and judgment while preserving trust and momentum.

• Bias toward action. You move quickly, make decisions with imperfect information, and treat shipped-and-adopted as the definition of done.

• 4+ years of software engineering, solutions engineering, forward-deployed engineering, or technical delivery experience, with a track record of shipping production software into customer environments.

• Strong hands-on coding ability in at least one modern programming language, such as Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, or C#.

• Experience working in large, unfamiliar codebases and complex technical environments.

• Demonstrated experience integrating software with enterprise systems, including APIs, data pipelines, authentication/SSO, and cloud platforms.

• Direct customer-facing experience across discovery, requirements gathering, solution design, and delivery with technical and business stakeholders.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

• Willingness to travel to customer sites, typically 20-40%, depending on the engagement.

What Could Set You Apart:

• Hands-on experience deploying AI/ML or LLM-based solutions into production, including RAG, prompt engineering, agentic orchestration, model evaluation, and output quality controls.

• Experience with enterprise SaaS platforms, cloud-based systems, and the security, compliance, and data-residency considerations of enterprise deployments.

• Familiarity with ERP, manufacturing, distribution, retail, supply chain, or related operational workflows.

• Experience with ETL processes, data pipelines, and enterprise data integration patterns.

• History of turning one-off customer solutions into reusable patterns, templates, connectors, or product capabilities.

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Whatever your career journey, we'll help you find the right path. Through our training courses, mentorship, and continuous support, you'll get everything you need to thrive. At Epicor, your success is our success. And that success really matters, because we're the essential partners for the world's most essential businesses-the hardworking companies who make, move, and sell the things the world needs.

Range:

Minimum: $94,000 USD Maximum: $151,000 USD

The salary range provided reflects the national average for this job title and does not represent compensation specific to Epicor Software Corporation. Actual compensation will vary based on experience, qualifications, and market factors relevant to the position.

Recruiter:

Drew Wussler, Matthew Brady