--- title: 'Senior Forward Deployed Engineer at Keyfactor, Inc.' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-forward-deployed-engineer-keyfactor-inc-cleveland-mznzt49e40hs' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-15' --- # Senior Forward Deployed Engineer at Keyfactor, Inc. - **Company:** Keyfactor, Inc. - **Location:** Cleveland, OH - **Work type:** hybrid - **Posted:** 2026-09-09 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-15 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/keyfactorinc/jobs/6183219004 ## Job description ## About Keyfactor Our mission is to securely connect the world: humans, machines, and AI. Keyfactor is the leader in trust infrastructure for AI and machines, helping the world's largest enterprises and government agencies take control of the cryptographic identities that safeguard every digital interaction. Behind the platform is a global team of people who care deeply about the work and each other. We move fast, think big, and show up for one another every day. If you're looking for work that matters and a team that brings out your best, we hope you'll trust your future with Keyfactor! Title:  Senior Forward Deployed Engineer Location: United States; Hybrid (Cleveland area preferred) Experience: Senior level Job Function: Professional Services Employment Type:  Full-Time Industry:  Computer & Network Security Travel Requirements: 25% ## About the position The Senior Forward Deployed Engineer is a highly experienced technical practitioner responsible for designing, deploying, and troubleshooting complex customer solutions. This role partners closely with customers and teams across Professional Services, Sales Engineering, Product, and Engineering to solve challenging technical problems and ensure successful deployments. The Senior FDE brings deep technical expertise to customer engagements, serves as a trusted technical advisor, and helps translate real-world customer requirements and field insights into improvements across our products and delivery practices. This role also contributes to reusable architectures, integration patterns, and technical best practices while providing guidance and mentorship to other technical team members. Job Responsibilities - Lead the technical design and execution of complex customer solutions and deployments. - Assess technical feasibility, architecture, risks, dependencies, and integration requirements across customer environments. - Troubleshoot and resolve complex technical and deployment challenges, partnering with Product and Engineering as needed. - Serve as a senior technical resource and escalation point for challenging customer engagements. - Develop and contribute to reusable reference architectures, integration patterns, tools, and technical best practices. - Identify recurring technical challenges in the field and collaborate with Product, Engineering, and delivery teams to develop scalable solutions. - Translate customer requirements and field insights into actionable product feedback and technical recommendations. - Provide technical guidance throughout the customer lifecycle, from late-stage presales through implementation and production deployment. - Serve as a trusted technical advisor to customers and cross-functional stakeholders. - Mentor and provide technical guidance to FDEs and other technical team members. - Contribute to improvements in deployment consistency, scalability, and customer time-to-value. - Collaborate across Professional Services, Sales Engineering, Product, and Engineering to improve the overall customer experience. Minimum Qualifications, Education, and Skills - Significant experience designing and deploying enterprise security, cloud, infrastructure, or SaaS solutions in complex customer environments. - Strong expertise in enterprise integrations, APIs, distributed systems, networking, identity, security, and cloud technologies. - Proven ability to independently diagnose and resolve complex and ambiguous technical challenges. - Experience across solution architecture, presales, implementation, and production deployment. - Experience developing or contributing to reusable technical architectures, integration patterns, tools, or best practices. - Strong customer-facing communication skills with the ability to communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences. - Demonstrated ability to collaborate with and influence Product, Engineering, and other cross-functional teams without direct authority. - Ability to operate with a high degree of autonomy while effectively managing multiple complex customer engagements. - Experience mentoring or providing technical guidance to other technical practitioners. ## #LI-NA1 ## Compensation Salary will be commensurate with experience. Culture, Career Opportunities and Benefits We build teams that continually strive to get better than the day before. You will be challenged daily and given opportunities to grow personally and professionally. We balance autonomy and structure to create an entrepreneurial environment to spur creativity and new ideas. Here are just some of the initiatives that make our culture special: - Second Fridays (a company-wide day off on the second Friday of every month minus November and December due to the Holiday schedule). Please note that this benefit is subject to change. - Comprehensive benefit coverage globally. - Paid Parental Leave is available to new parents. Structure varies based on regional/government requirements. In regions where government-paid leave doesn’t exist, like in the U.S., the company offers generous paid parental leave, along with comprehensive adoption and fertility support. - Competitive time off globally. - Dedicated employee-focused ambassadors via Key Contributors & Culture Committees. - DIVERSE Commitment, a call to action for a more inclusive and diverse future in business, society, and technology. - The Keyfactor Alliance Program to support DEIB efforts. - Wellbeing resources, wellness allowance, mindfulness app free membership, Wellness Wednesdays. - Global Volunteer Day, company non-profit matching, and 3 volunteer days off. - Monthly Talent development and Cross Functional meetings to support professional development. - Regular All Hands meetings – followed by group gatherings. Our Core Values Our core values are extremely important to how we run our business and what we look for in every team member: Trust is paramount. We deliver security software and solutions where trust and openness are of the highest importance for our customers. We are honest and a trusted partner in every aspect of business. Customers are core. We strategize, operate, and execute through a customer-centric view. We prioritize the security interests of our customers, and we act as if their data were our own. Innovation never stops, it only accelerates. The speed of change is accelerating. We are committed, through investment and focus, to stay ahead of the innovation curve. We deliver with agility. We thrive in high-paced and continually changing environments. We navigate through newly added variables, adjust accordingly, while driving towards our strategic goals. United by respect. Respect for all is what unites us. We promote diversity, inclusivity, equity, and acting with empathy and openness, both in our business and in our communities. Teams make “it” happen. Vision and goals are not individually achievable – they require teamwork. We pride ourselves in operating as a cohesive team, creating promoters and partners, and winning as one. Keyfactor is a proud equal opportunity employer including but not limited to veterans and individuals with disabilities. REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION: Applicants with disabilities may contact a member of Keyfactor’s People team via people@keyfactor.com and/or telephone at 1.216.785.2990 to request and arrange for accommodations at any time. [Keyfactor Privacy Notice](https://www.keyfactor.com/privacy-policy/) ## About Keyfactor, Inc. ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Keyfactor provides a trust infrastructure platform that automates the lifecycle management of machine identities and cryptography to secure digital interactions for enterprises. - **Entity Type**: Private - **Headquarters**: Independence, Ohio (Cleveland area), USA - **Founded**: 2001 (as a cryptographic engineering firm) - **Founders**: Ted Shorter (CTO & Co-founder) ## Core Business - **Primary Industries**: Cybersecurity, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), Machine Identity Management, Cryptographic Security, Post-Quantum Cryptography - **Target Customers**: B2B, Enterprise, Large-scale organizations (finance, healthcare, government, tech) managing millions of machine identities and AI agents - **Mission**: "Securely connect the world—humans, machines, and AI—with cryptographic security." - **Vision**: "A world where every digital interaction is trusted, reliable, and quantum-safe." ## Products & Services - **Keyfactor Platform (Trust Control Plane)**: The core SaaS/software platform that provides visibility, governance, and orchestration of cryptographic identities and infrastructure. It discovers cryptographic assets, automates certificate lifecycles, and enforces policy. - **Keyfactor PKI as a Service (PKIaaS)**: A modern, quantum-ready public key infrastructure service to issue trusted identities for machines, workloads, and AI agents. - **Keyfactor Code Signing**: A secure code signing solution to verify the integrity of software and systems. - **Keyfactor Command**: An enterprise certificate lifecycle management tool that automates the issuance, renewal, and revocation of digital certificates. - **Keyfactor EJBCA**: An enterprise-grade, open-source-based PKI solution for organizations needing on-premise control. - **Redtrust**: A subsidiary/offering focused on digital signature and identity solutions for regulated industries. ## Market Standing - **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed (Private company) - **Key Metric**: Over 550 employees globally, serving hundreds of enterprise customers - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Keyfactor has received significant private equity investment from **Insight Partners** (a leading global venture capital and private equity firm). Key partners include major cloud providers, certificate authorities, and technology integrators. - **Growth Signals**: - Recognized as an **Inc. Best Place to Work** (since 2021) and **Certified™ by Great Place to Work®** (since 2024). - Operates across **20+ countries** with major offices in the US (Cleveland HQ), Europe (Aachen, Germany; Stockholm, Sweden; France), and the UK. - Strong focus on the rapidly growing machine identity management market, driven by the rise of AI agents and the transition to post-quantum cryptography. - Over **160 open positions** at the time of the careers page review. ## Competitive Advantages - **Deep Cryptographic Roots**: Founded by cryptography engineers, giving the company deep technical expertise in the core technology (not "bitcoin kind" but real cryptographic design and policy). - **Comprehensive Platform**: Combines certificate lifecycle management (CLM), PKI, code signing, and cryptographic observability into a single "Trust Control Plane," reducing vendor fragmentation. - **Quantum-Ready**: Actively building post-quantum cryptography (PQC) readiness into its platform, positioning it as a future-proof solution for enterprise security. - **Open-Source Heritage**: EJBCA, one of the most widely used open-source PKI projects, is managed by Keyfactor, giving them a strong developer community and credibility. ## Strategic Focus - **Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) Transition**: Helping enterprises migrate from current cryptographic standards to quantum-resistant algorithms without business disruption. - **AI & Machine Identity Security**: Expanding capabilities to issue and manage identities for AI agents and non-human entities at massive scale. - **Platform Consolidation**: Encouraging customers to adopt the full Keyfactor platform (visibility + automation + PKI) to gain a unified view of their cryptographic risk. - **Global Expansion**: Growing its international presence, particularly in Europe, with offices in Germany, Sweden, France, and the UK. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Strong emphasis on a "people-first, high-performance culture" with core values: *Trust Is Paramount, Customers Are Core, United By Respect, We Deliver With Agility, Innovation Never Stops. It Only Accelerates.* - **Recognition**: Certified Great Place to Work® (2024) and Inc. Best Place to Work (since 2021). - **Work Model**: Offers remote, hybrid, and in-office options. Offices are "world-class" and located in Cleveland (HQ), Aachen (Germany), Stockholm (Sweden), and France. The company covers expenses to support remote working globally. - **Benefits**: - Comprehensive healthcare (medical, dental, vision in the US; generous plans globally). - Unlimited PTO in the Americas; generous time off and paid holidays globally (including a company-wide day off on the second Friday of most months). - 3 paid volunteer days per year. - Stock options for most roles/regions. - 401(k) / retirement plans with company match. - **Ongoing Learning**: Access to thousands of company-paid technical training courses, a stipend for development (including Tuition Reimbursement and Foreign Language Reimbursement), and "Talent Tuesdays" for regular development. - Parental leave. - **Team**: 550+ employees across 20+ countries. Peer recognition programs (KEY Innovator, KEY Contributor, KEYKudos, KEY Culture Ambassadors). - **Engineering Culture**: Deep technical focus on cryptography, PKI, and security. The company has a "Crypto Workshop" and is described as "crypto-geeks" who design and build cryptographic systems. ## Sources 1. [Keyfactor.com - Homepage](https://www.keyfactor.com/) 2. [Keyfactor.com - About Us](https://www.keyfactor.com/about-us/) 3. [Keyfactor.com - Careers](https://www.keyfactor.com/careers/) 4. [LinkedIn - Keyfactor](https://www.linkedin.com/company/wearekeyfactor) 5. 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