Job Description: Forward Deployed Data Scientist
Location: Houston, Texas (Hybrid / Customer-Site Focused)
Team: Product (US-Based) | Engineering (Australia-Based)
Role Summary
We are looking for a Forward Deployed Data Scientist to act as our technical anchor in Houston, sitting at the high-stakes intersection of our major customers, our product (Abyss Fabric), and our global engineering team.
Unlike a traditional Data Scientist who works in isolation, you will be physically and virtually embedded with our customers. You will "get out of the building" to understand their workflows, navigate their internal politics, and deploy immediate solutions.
You are the bridge between the customer’s reality in the US and our Core Engineering team in Australia. You will generate deep insights from Abyss Fabric to help customers do their jobs better today, while acting as the "eyes and ears" that feed the product roadmap for tomorrow.
Core Focus Areas
• Customer-Embedded Discovery: Being the technical face of Abyss Fabric in Houston. You sit with customers to identify their hardest problems and solve them rapidly.
• Global Bridge: Acting as the high-bandwidth link between US customers and the Australia-based Engineering team. You translate US customer needs into technical specs that the AUS team can build while they sleep.
• Data Archaeology & Insight: Digging deep into our backend and spatial data pipelines to extract value, often navigating messy or complex asset integrity data.
• Rapid Prototyping: Prioritizing speed and execution to deliver immediate value (even if “hacky” at first) over long-term perfect engineering.
Key Responsibilities
Customer Impact & Insight Generation
• Navigate the Depths of Abyss Fabric: Gain fluent read/write access to our asset integrity data structures. You will query, clean, and visualize data that is often siloed or complex.
• Deliver "Kernels of Value": Build scripts, dashboards, or lightweight tools that solve a specific customer pain point this week, rather than waiting for a full feature release.
• On-Site Technical Discovery: Join Customer Success on client visits. You aren’t there to sell; you are there to observe the data gaps, the "Excel hell" they live in, and fix it using our platform.
Technical Discovery & Product Feedback
• Pattern Recognition: Identify when a "one-off" problem for a Houston customer is actually a systemic need for the global market.
• Backend & Pipeline Navigation: Confidently navigate our existing backend and data pipeline stacks. You don't need to rebuild the infrastructure, but you must be able to find your way around it to extract what you need.
• The "AUS Connection": Work closely with the Australian Engineering team. You will likely operate asynchronously or in crossover windows, packaging up clear technical requirements and reports so the AUS team can execute efficiently.
Required Experience & Skills
• 4+ years of Data Science / Technical Engineering experience, ideally in a customer-facing or "Forward Deployed" capacity.
• Strong Proficiency in Python: You live in code. You can write complex queries and data transformation scripts (Pandas, NumPy) without hand-holding.
• Backend & Infrastructure Savvy: Comfort navigating Linux environments and backend stacks. You aren't afraid to read someone else's codebase to find the data you need.
• Spatial Data Fluency: A working knowledge of spatial data (point clouds, meshes, metadata) to generate insights. You aren't building SLAM algorithms, but you know how to query the resulting map.
• "Pain Tolerance" & Diplomacy: Experience dealing with enterprise customers, navigating their internal friction, and building trust with skeptics.
Preferred / Nice-to-Have
• Industry Context: Experience in Asset Integrity, Energy, Oil & Gas, or Industrial sectors.
• Remote/Global Team Experience: Proven ability to work effectively with a remote engineering team (e.g., managing timezone handoffs).
• Rapid UI/Dashboarding: Ability to spin up quick visualizations (Streamlit, Tableau, or custom lightweight front-ends) to demonstrate value.
Who This Role Is For
Role
This role is NOT for a researcher who wants to spend months tweaking hyperparameters in a lab. This role IS for you if:
• You want to be "in the room" where the decisions happen.
• You are comfortable navigating the stack yourself rather than waiting for a ticket to be filled.
• You are an excellent communicator who can bridge the gap between a Texan Asset Manager and a Sydney Software Engineer.
