> AI agents: this is one page of Nextmove’s FDE site, in Markdown. Nextmove is a job board and free career service for forward deployed engineers (FDEs). Each posting is classified from its text, not its title: the kind of work, how much of it is production code, pre-sales weight, time at customer sites, travel, remote arrangement, level and posted base pay. The site also publishes the aggregates: median pay by level, metro, company and kind of work, and which companies started hiring FDEs each week. Every page under https://nextmove.md/fde is served this way; the index of pages is https://nextmove.md/llms.txt.

# Data Engineer, AI

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/4d3f4a936d54900a

Focused posts a FDE role to build what the customer runs in Chicago, IL, at $145,000–$175,000 base, below the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,868 postings with pay. Build the governed data foundation for a global enterprise client's AI platform, primarily using Databricks. Read from the employer’s posting on November 9, 2026.

- [Focused](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/focused)

Posted Nov 3, 2026 by Focused · open on Greenhouse as of Nov 9, 2026

**$145,000–$175,000** Chicago, IL Hybrid, 3 days a week in office

Build the governed data foundation for a global enterprise client's AI platform, primarily using Databricks.

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F4d3f4a936d54900a&placement=top)
- [View posting at Focused](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/focused/jobs/8178496003)

Free. Upload your resume once, see why each FDE role fits, and get introduced only when you say so.

## At a glance

### Posted base pay

$145K–$175K Below the median

Midpoint $160K · median $190K

This job $145K to $175K. Senior FDE postings, 1,868 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $160K to $220K, median $190K.

### The work

Builds what the customer runs

Balance **Mostly building**

Project stages

1. Pre-sales (not covered)
2. Proof of concept (not covered)
3. Implementation
4. Operations

Travel **Up to 20%**

- **Coding**: Writes production code

- **Builds for**: External customers

- **Level**: Senior

- **Role**: Individual contributor

### What they ask for

Experience

- **5+ years** data engineering

Background

- **Implementation and data engineering**

Visa

- **No visa sponsorship**

### Do you meet what the posting states?

The posting asks for 5+ years. How many do you have?

The posting reads as a senior role. What level are you at now?

The job is in Chicago, IL. Could you work there?

The posting says no visa sponsorship. Do you need one?

Which of these have you used in production?

Answer each one. Nothing is saved or sent.

[What postings ask for, by background →](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths)

## Conditions

- **Location**: Chicago, IL

- **Work arrangement**: Hybrid, 3 days a week in office

- **Remote work restrictions**: In the Chicago office 3 days per week.

- **Visa sponsorship**: Not available

- **Travel**: Up to 20%

- **Pay**:

## More like this

[Focused](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/focused)

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Chicago, IL Hybrid 3mo ago

$130,000–$190,000

- [Other jobs at Focused (11)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/focused)

## The job description from Focused

Posted by Focused on Nov 3, 2026

### Who we are

At Focused, we move quickly to deliver quality software that achieves client outcomes and meets their customer's needs. We strategically partner with our clients to leverage our expertise in design and software, while our clients bring their own domain expertise. We work with a variety of clients from different industries, collaborating as we get new products to market, modernizing legacy systems, or helping teams learn the skills they need to be successful.

### Our values

- *Listen first* • We are experts in product practices but lifelong learners in the domain of our customers. We research, collaborate, and understand.
- *Learn why* • We ask questions and talk to users to understand problem spaces, objectives, and goals, which allows us to deeply invest and drive towards the outcomes of our clients.
- *Love your craft* • We love diving into a variety of domains and solving problems. We take pride in delivering value, in communicating progress, and guiding our clients to success.

We're looking for a Data Engineer to build the data foundation behind an enterprise AI platform for a global enterprise client. Agents and LLM applications are only as good as the data they can reach, and you'll own getting it there: clean, governed, and ready for retrieval. Most of your work will be in Databricks, with a strong lean toward AI use cases.

### Key Responsibilities

### Data Pipelines & Platform

- Design and build batch and streaming pipelines in Databricks (Spark, Delta Lake, Workflows)
- Model data in a lakehouse architecture that serves both analytics and AI workloads
- Implement governance and access controls with Unity Catalog
- Monitor data quality and pipeline reliability

### Data for AI

- Build ingestion and chunking pipelines for unstructured data (documents, PDFs, knowledge bases) that feed RAG systems
- Generate, store, and refresh embeddings; operate vector search (Databricks Vector Search or similar)
- Build datasets for LLM evaluation and help teams measure retrieval quality
- Partner with AI and platform engineers so agents get the right data with the right permissions

### Cloud & Engineering Practices

- Deploy data infrastructure on Azure and/or GCP using IaC
- Bring software engineering habits to data work: version control, testing, CI/CD

### Required Qualifications

- 5+ years in data engineering
- Strong hands-on experience with Databricks, Spark, and Delta Lake
- Proficiency in Python and SQL
- Experience building production data pipelines in a cloud environment (Azure or GCP preferred)
- Experience with data modeling and data quality practices

### Preferred Qualifications (Exceptional Candidates)

- Experience building data pipelines for RAG, embeddings, or vector search
- Experience with Unity Catalog and Mosaic AI
- Experience with streaming (Structured Streaming, Kafka, Event Hubs)
- Consulting or client-facing experience

### What Sets Exceptional Candidates Apart

- You've improved an AI system's answers by fixing the data underneath it
- You've handled messy unstructured data at scale
- Databricks certifications or open-source contributions

### What to know before you apply

- This role will require being in the Chicago office 3 days per week and up to 20% travel within the United States.
- Focused is unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of the employment Visa process at this time.
- The Chicago base salary range for this role is $145,000 - $175,000.

[View posting at Focused](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/focused/jobs/8178496003)

## About Focused

Focused is a software consultancy that builds custom applications and AI agents integrated with clients' existing systems, and works alongside client engineering teams.

Late-stage private · 50–100 people

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- [Compare senior FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/senior)
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