About Starburst

Starburst is the data platform for analytics, applications, and AI, unifying data across clouds and on-premises to accelerate AI innovation. Organizations—from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises in 60+ countries—rely on Starburst for fast data access, seamless collaboration, and enterprise-grade governance on an open hybrid data lakehouse. Wherever data lives, Starburst unlocks its full potential, powering data and AI from development to deployment. By future-proofing data architecture, Starburst helps businesses fuel innovation with AI.

About the Role

Starburst Forward Deployed Engineers are deeply technical leaders who work directly with enterprise customers and partners to define, design, and operationalize large-scale data platforms built on Starburst. In this role, you will be the primary technical authority guiding customers through architecture, performance engineering, data governance, and multi-cloud implementation patterns.

You will engage with engineering teams, principal architects, and C-suite stakeholders to shape data platform blueprints, troubleshoot complex workloads, and ensure customers successfully operationalize Starburst at scale. As a technical expert, you will dive into integration patterns across the modern analytics stack.

In this highly influential, customer-facing role, you will collaborate with C-suite executives, architects, engineering leaders, and strategic partners to define future-state architectures, drive data platform transformation, and align technical strategy with business outcomes. You will also work closely with Product and Engineering teams to bring field insights back into the organization and help shape Starburst’s long-term roadmap.

This role is located in North America.

As a Forward Deployed Engineer at Starburst you will:

• Act as a senior technical advisor to strategic enterprise customers, helping them design and implement modern data architectures and solutions powered by Starburst.

• Build custom solutions, working closely with engineering develop field solutions in customer facing projects.

• Engage with executives across IT, data, and business teams, translating Starburst’s value into business impact and aligning platform strategy with organizational goals.

• Define and articulate target-state architectures, including data products, lakehouse, distributed query engines, and cloud-native data platforms.

• Develop technical strategy in strategic accounts, partnering with account teams to drive long-term vision, remove obstacles, and ensure successful adoption.

• Guide customers through architectural reviews, best practices, governance models, performance considerations, and security patterns.

• Influence and drive product direction, representing customer needs and industry trends to Engineering and Product Management.

• Develop reference architectures, blueprints, and executive-level technical content that communicates best practices and Starburst’s strategic direction..

• Evangelize modern data architecture principles, helping customers and partners understand how distributed data access, analytics acceleration, and AI workloads benefit from Starburst.

Some of the things we look for:

• Deep expertise in modern data architectures, including data lakes, lakehouses and data warehouses.

• Strong understanding of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and hybrid/multi-cloud architecture patterns.

• Executive presence and exceptional communication skills, with the ability to influence senior leaders across technical and business domains.

• Demonstrated success guiding large-scale data platform transformations and working with enterprise customers.

• Hands-on proficiency with SQL, data integration, performance tuning, or analytics engineering.

• Ability to travel as needed for customer and industry engagements.

• Expertise with kubernetes platforms like EKS,AKS, GKE and Openshift.

Starburst is dedicated to maintaining fair and equitable compensation practices. The salary range provided for this role reflects the minimum and maximum targets for candidates across all U.S. locations and could be inclusive of variable compensation, such as commission or bonus. All employees receive equity packages (ISOs) and have access to a comprehensive benefits offering. Actual compensation packages are determined based on relevant skills, experience, education and training, and specific work location. For more information, connect with the recruiting team or Hiring Manager during the process as they can provide more detailed information about the salary range.

Pay Range**$200,000—$240,000 USD**

Build your career at Starburst

All-Stars have the opportunity and freedom to realize their true potential. By building alongside top talent, we’re empowered to take ownership of our careers and drive meaningful change. Anchored in industry-proven technology and unprecedented success, All-Stars are taking on the challenge everyday to disrupt our industry – and the future.

Our global workforce is supported by a competitive Total Rewards program that reflects our commitment to a rewarding and supportive work environment. This includes a variety of benefits like competitive pay, attractive stock grants, flexible paid time off, and more.

We are committed to fostering an intentional, inclusive, and diverse culture that drives deep engagement, authentic belonging, and an exceptional All-Star experience. We believe that diversity of thought, perspective, background and experience will enable us to own what we do, drive our success and empower our All-Stars to show up authentically.

Starburst provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state
or local laws.