Forward Deployed Engineer

Graham
Anderson

Engineer with a hybrid background in enterprise software delivery and $80M+ program leadership. I build production-minded AI prototypes — RAG pipelines, MCP servers, agentic systems — and translate emerging capabilities into measurable business outcomes.

View my workLet's talk

About

Equally comfortable
in the whiteboard
and the IDE.

I'm a solutions-focused engineer with a hybrid background in enterprise software delivery and large-scale program leadership. At Accenture Federal Services I design and integrate Java/Spring and TypeScript systems for federal clients. Before that, I spent 13 years owning $80M+ commercial programs end-to-end — discovery, scoping, executive presentations, and customer-facing delivery.

On the AI side, I build production-minded proofs-of-concept with LLM APIs, RAG pipelines, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) — and stand up evaluation harnesses to measure prototype quality against real customer requirements.

Based in Evergreen, CO. Available for extensive travel to customer sites.

$80M+

Programs delivered

40%

Faster CI/CD deployments

13+

Years leading delivery

3+

Years software engineering

Why FDE

Why this role,
specifically.

A lot of people can write code. Fewer can embed with a customer, understand their actual problem, and ship something that changes how they work — all on a short timeline. That intersection is where I operate best.

01

I've lived on both sides of the table

Thirteen years owning $80M+ programs gave me something most engineers don't have: deep fluency with how customers think, make decisions, and measure success. I know what a C-level sponsor needs to hear, and I know how to get there technically.

02

I'm built for ambiguity and speed

The best FDE work happens in the gap between a customer's half-formed problem and a working solution. I've spent my career in that gap — running complex programs with incomplete information, then pivoting to software engineering where I do the same thing in code.

03

AI is where I'm placing my bets

I'm not waiting for AI to mature before I engage with it. I build RAG pipelines, MCP servers, and agentic prototypes now — standing up eval harnesses to measure quality and tracking the landscape so I can translate what's possible into what's valuable for a specific customer.

04

I close the loop

A lot of engineers hand off to sales or customer success. I don't want to. The feedback loop between what customers need and what gets built is where leverage lives — and it's the thing I find most energizing about the FDE role.

Projects

Things I've built

AI Integration

SaaS Command Center

SaaS metrics dashboard with KPI cards, churn tracking, and a natural language query interface. AI responses are mocked to demonstrate the integration pattern — designed to wire into Claude API with an API key.

Next.jsMock AIRechartsTypeScript
RAG Pipeline

RAG Knowledge Agent

RAG pipeline with real TF-IDF cosine similarity retrieval over a 5-document corpus. Chunks, scores, and surfaces context visually. Answer generation is mocked — built to swap in a live LLM with an API key.

Next.jsTF-IDFRAGTypeScript
Model Context Protocol

MCP Integration Server

Model Context Protocol server with 6 enterprise tools — query customer DB, surface support tickets, search docs, and pull live metrics. Connects directly to Claude Desktop via stdio transport.

MCP SDKTypeScriptZodstdio

CLI / server — no live demo

40% faster deploys

CI/CD Pipeline Optimizer

Parallelized and cached GitLab CI/CD pipelines for a federal client, reducing deployment time by 40% and enabling faster iteration cycles for customer demos and prototypes.

GitLab CI/CDDockerKubernetesJava

Past work — no public repo

Experience

Where I've worked

Software Engineer

Accenture Federal Services

Mar 2023 — Present
  • —Partner directly with federal client stakeholders to modernize legacy enterprise systems — translating ambiguous requirements into Java/Spring Boot microservice architectures.
  • —Designed and built scalable RESTful microservices, increasing system maintainability and enabling integration with existing client infrastructure.
  • —Enhanced GitLab CI/CD pipelines through parallelization and caching, reducing deployment time by 40% and accelerating iteration speed for client demos.
  • —Implemented secure secrets management with HashiCorp Vault, strengthening security posture and meeting federal compliance requirements.

Software Developer

Modius

Mar 2022 — Mar 2023
  • —Developed Java-based applications with SmartGWT/JavaScript front-ends for enterprise data-center customers on embedded/IoT devices.
  • —Authored and consumed RESTful APIs supporting real-time device communication and integration with adjacent enterprise systems.
  • —Streamlined deployment workflows by optimizing integration scripts, reducing manual handoffs and release friction.

Java Full Stack Developer

Skill Distillery

Oct 2021 — Mar 2022
  • —Built full-stack applications in Java, Spring Boot, and JavaScript deployed on AWS with RESTful service architectures.
  • —Served as Scrum Master and Database Administrator — enforcing Agile cadence, facilitating ceremonies, and driving schema design.

Senior Project Manager

Commercial & Industrial Electrical Construction

Jan 2008 — Sep 2021
  • —Owned end-to-end delivery of $80M+ commercial and industrial programs — leading discovery, scoping, business-case development, and executive presentations.
  • —Built customer-specific delivery roadmaps and forecast models that quantified scope, cost, and schedule trade-offs for C-level sponsors.
  • —Coordinated across procurement, engineering, manpower, and scheduling functions — building the cross-functional collaboration muscle that directly applies to FDE work.

Skills

What I work with

Languages & Frameworks

JavaSpring BootTypeScriptJavaScriptPythonREST APIs

AI & Agentic

Claude APILLM APIsRAGMCP ServersPrompt EngineeringAgent Evaluation

Frontend

ReactNext.jsTailwind CSS

Infrastructure & DevOps

AWSKubernetesDockerGitLab CI/CDHashiCorp Vault

Data & Integration

SQLMicroservicesSystems IntegrationRESTful APIs

Leadership

Customer DiscoveryExecutive PresentationsProgram ManagementAgile / Scrum

Certifications

▪

Kubernetes: Cloud Native Ecosystem

LinkedIn Learning

▪

Spring Boot 1.0 Essential Training

LinkedIn Learning

▪

Software Architecture Foundations

LinkedIn Learning

Education

▪

Certificate, Java Full Stack Development

Skill Distillery · 2021–2022

▪

Certificate, Electrical Apprenticeship

Emily Griffith Technical College · 2008–2012

▪

Computer Science (coursework)

Metropolitan State University of Denver

Contact

Let's build
something great.

Whether you have a complex integration, a tight deadline, or just an idea — I'd love to hear about it.

gramman87@gmail.com
LinkedInGitHubResumeCover Letter

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