Eliza

Senior Forward Deployed Engineer

Posted 3 Days Ago

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Austin, TX, USA

In-Office

Senior level

Artificial Intelligence • Software

The Role

Lead complex AI engineering projects, guiding clients in technical and strategic decision-making, while mentoring junior engineers and ensuring successful deployment of AI solutions.

Summary Generated by Built In

About Us

We are a technology services company on the frontier of applied AI. We partner with forward-thinking organizations to build, customize, and deploy high-impact AI solutions—from generative models and intelligent agents to scalable machine learning systems. Our work spans industries and use cases, and we operate as both builders and strategic partners to help our clients unlock the full potential of artificial intelligence.

Job Summary

We are hiring a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to lead complex, client-facing AI engineering projects. This role blends deep technical expertise with high-level consulting skills: you’ll be responsible for scoping, designing, and delivering mission-critical AI solutions, while guiding clients through technical and strategic decision-making. You’ll act as both a trusted advisor and a hands-on technical leader, embedded directly with client teams to ensure the successful deployment and adoption of AI technologies.

This is an ideal role for someone who thrives in ambiguous environments, enjoys solving hard real-world problems with code, and wants to shape the future of AI in enterprise.

Key Responsibilities

1. Technical Leadership & Solution Design

Lead architecture and design of AI/ML solutions tailored to unique client requirements, balancing scalability, performance, and maintainability.
Guide clients through decisions related to LLM integration, data engineering, infrastructure design, and model operations.
Own end-to-end solution delivery, from exploration and rapid prototyping to production deployment and handoff.

2. Client Engagement & Consulting

Serve as the senior technical point of contact during client engagements—trusted by executives, product leaders, and technical teams alike.
Conduct technical discovery, shape implementation roadmaps, and communicate risks and trade-offs clearly to diverse stakeholders.
Influence long-term client strategy through technical advisory, architectural reviews, and enablement sessions.

3. Deep AI Engineering

Build AI-driven applications using modern frameworks and tools (e.g., Python, LangChain, FastAPI, Docker, cloud-native platforms).
Design and implement workflows involving generative AI (e.g., retrieval-augmented generation, prompt tuning, embeddings pipelines).
Collaborate with internal research, data, and platform teams to extend company-wide best practices to client-specific contexts.

4. Mentorship & Technical Enablement

Mentor junior engineers and consultants across engagements, fostering a high bar for technical quality and client service.
Help define internal tooling, architecture patterns, and deployment playbooks based on field experience.
Represent the engineering team in pre-sales discussions, project scoping, and high-stakes strategic planning.

Qualifications
Required

5–8+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 3+ years in AI/ML-focused roles.
Demonstrated experience leading technical delivery in a client-facing or consulting environment.
Strong understanding of modern AI architectures, including experience deploying LLMs, building RAG pipelines, and working with vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS).
Fluency in Python, with experience in cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), containerization, and scalable API design.
Excellent interpersonal and communication skills; able to command technical and business conversations with senior stakeholders.

Preferred

Experience in regulated or high-complexity environments (e.g., finance, healthcare, legal, government).
Familiarity with enterprise AI lifecycle tools (e.g., MLflow, Ray, Databricks, Airflow).
Contributions to open-source AI tools or internal frameworks in previous roles.
Willingness to travel for key client engagements (if applicable).

What We Offer