Forward Deployment Engineer – Expert - 5G/6G/NTN - US-TX-Austin OF, United States
$132,450 - $255,150 USD yearly
Originally posted 30 September 2026 by the employer.
Deliver production code for 5G/6G/NTN protocol stacks.
About the role
The Expert Forward Deployment Engineer works inside a customer's development program as a software developer, systems engineer, and deployment lead, shipping production code. This role focuses on diagnosing problems deep within the 5G/6G/NTN protocol stack and delivering controlled releases during customer development cycles.
What you'll do
- Reduce broad account concepts and business strategies into structured, multi-workstream deployment projects.
- Act as the key technical lead for Department or Senior Management on complex or high-impact deployment engagements.
- Analyze signaling flows, traces, timing behavior, and performance data to isolate failures.
- Write and modify application and protocol-stack software, plus supporting software and firmware.
- Develop and extend Python APIs that customer teams integrate against.
- Develop, validate, and deploy controlled patches, feature flags, and interim releases.
What you'll need
- 8+ years of relevant software/systems engineering experience.
- Strong software-development experience across multiple software stacks.
- Proficiency in C/C++ and Python (including API development), Linux, embedded or real-time software, and automated testing.
- Experience debugging protocol interactions through logs, traces, packet captures, call flows, and and timing analysis.
- Familiarity with 3GPP specifications and the practical differences among standards compliance, interoperability, and implementation behavior.
- Ability to produce production-quality code that ships in a customer's build.
Nice to have
- Expertise in at least one domain (PHY/L1, MAC/RLC/PDCP and L2, or RRC/NAS and L3), plus working knowledge of adjacent layers and end-to-end 4G, 5G, and 5G-Advanced system behavior.
- Experience in design and test instrumentation and test emulation tools.
- Specialized depth and/or breadth of expertise across multiple protocol layers, software stacks, and deployment domains.
- Demonstrated technical leadership: ability to design solutions to unusually complex problems and set direction for other engineers.
Skills: software developer, protocol stack, C/C++, Python, Linux
This role has been open 9 days — well below the 59-day median for Systems Software Engineering roles.
Systems Software Engineering · Systems Software
|
Open roles in category
683
|
Median days open
59 d
|
Median salary
$213k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Keysight Technologies | All employers we track in this specialty (683 roles · 73 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 13 | 683 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 152 | 6078 · 146 employers |
| Median days open | 11 d | 59 d (−48 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $213k |
Skills observed across this category: software developer, protocol stack, C/C++, Python, Linux
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 169 open roles · median 74 d
- NVIDIA · 128 open roles · median 51 d
- AMD · 59 open roles · median 50 d
- Mobileye · 29 open roles · median 73 d
- Broadcom · 22 open roles · median 45 d
- Arm Holdings · 20 open roles · median 107 d
How we counted: 683 open Systems Software Engineering (Systems Software) roles from 73 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 10 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.