Founding Data Engineer Jobs in Somerville, MA (NOW HIRING)

We are a Site Intelligence company transforming how industrial businesses operate. Our platform turns your existing infrastructure into a source of actionable operational intelligence, enabling teams to see what's happening, understand why, and improve continuously. By surfacing the operational signals that reports miss, we help the world's largest logistics, manufacturing, and warehousing operators stay one step ahead, making operations visible and driving proactive safety. We're a fast-growing, high-agency team building category-defining products by leveraging the latest technologies in computer vision and AI.

Industry leaders like DHL, Amazon, and Tesla trust Protex AI to drive measurable safety improvements, achieving an average 64% risk reduction within just three months of deployment. Operating in 20+ countries, Protex is the go-to safety partner for Fortune 500 manufacturing and logistics enterprises, transforming workplace safety with real-time, AI-powered insights.

As the first Forward Deployed Engineer in our Boston office, you have a premier opportunity to spearhead technical leadership at a fast-paced startup. As one of two dedicated technical resources supporting a key enterprise client, you own the software, data infrastructure, integrations, and custom builds that turn agreed use cases into working, reliable systems—working closely with the client and collaborating with a dedicated Technical Implementation Consultant.

This is a high-impact, hybrid engineering role where you will serve as the founding technical presence in our Boston office. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you act as the vital bridge between complex client environments and our core engineering teams. You will work closely with major enterprise clients, traveling to their sites 4–5 times per year to gather context, run technical discovery, and align on system architecture. You remain a Protex employee throughout, building directly against client systems and scalable infrastructure rather than shipping generic product from a distance.

Ideally, you have strong data engineering and infrastructure skills alongside fullstack capability. As an FDE, you will cover the software build side of use case delivery, data integration development, robust pipeline architectures, hardware integrations, and rapid prototyping. You turn plans and success criteria set by your Technical Implementation Consultant counterpart into high-performant, reliable code, configurations, and data flows.

You will complete two weeks of intensive onboarding training in Dublin before starting, and will travel back to Ireland periodically as needed to stay close to the global product and engineering teams.

• Technical Leadership (Boston Hub): Act as the foundational Forward Deployed Engineer in our 20-person Boston office, setting high technical standards and helping establish the engineering culture as our fast-paced startup grows.

• Data Infrastructure & System Architecture: Architect, build, and optimize scalable data pipelines, data stores, and backend infrastructure required to process, model, and serve client data reliably at scale.

• Forward Deployed Delivery: Lead the technical build work, data model configuration, and validation for specific Protex use cases, in partnership with your Technical Implementation Consultant counterpart.

• Data Integration Development: You build robust connections, own data transformation/ pipelines, and guarantee data integrity.

• Hardware & Edge Integrations: Technical delivery of integrations between Protex and physical site infrastructure—PLCs, access control systems, audio alerting hardware, camera configurations, and edge devices.

• Rapid Prototyping: Build lightweight prototypes, data mockups, and proof-of-concept pipelines using AI tools and client data to unblock client decisions and prove value rapidly in the field.

• Forward Deployed Feedback Loop: Document data patterns, recurring integration friction, and edge deployment learnings to directly influence Protex’s core architecture and long-term product roadmap.

• Strong Data & Infrastructure Core: Demonstrated expertise in data engineering, data pipelines, backend architecture, API design, and modern data platforms (e.g., Snowflake, SQL/NoSQL, ETL/ELT pipelines, event-driven architectures).

• Startup Mindset & Forward Deployed Ownership: Excited to be the first Technical hire in our 20-person Boston office, bringing high agency, client-facing technical problem solving, and a desire to build in a fast-paced environment.

• Fullstack Capabilities: Comfortable moving across backend services, data infrastructure, custom APIs, and lightweight frontend or integration components.

• Enterprise Integration Experience: Proven track record building data-heavy integrations with enterprise ecosystems (ERP, CMMS, BI platforms) and/or edge/IoT hardware setups.

• Ability to Navigate Ambiguity: Able to move from complex, unstructured client datasets and requirements to a production-grade build rapidly in real-world deployment scenarios.

• Willingness to Travel: Open to traveling 4–5 times per year to client sites, along with occasional trips to our Dublin HQ and company offsites in Europe.

• You establish a strong engineering benchmark in Boston, bringing a Founder mindset to building great product. There is a major opportunity to anchor and help scale our US engineering team as the office grows.

• Client data pipelines, backend infrastructure, and platform integrations run with exceptional stability, low latency, and high accuracy.

• Complex client data is smoothly integrated into Protex, enabling rapid turnarounds on key forward deployed use cases.

• Prototypes and data POCs unblock client decisions quickly without creating technical debt.

• Architectural and integration patterns from forward deployments directly inform and improve Protex's core platform playbooks.

Protex AI is an inclusive and equal opportunities employer. We are committed to creating an equitable workplace for everyone regardless of gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, education level, or race.