{"id":759083,"url":"https://alion.io/job/eliza-senior-forward-deployed-engineer","title":"Senior Forward Deployed Engineer","company":{"id":449604,"name":"Eliza","domain":"eliza.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/eliza-5","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":6,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-11-08T05:47:12Z"}},"role":"Solutions","role_family":"Solutions","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"board_field","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":120000,"max_usd":231000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":540},"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon SageMaker","optional":false},{"name":"Anthropic","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Cohere SDK","optional":false},{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"MLFlow","optional":false},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":false},{"name":"Prompt Engineering","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false},{"name":"Weights & Biases","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-07-28T17:40:37Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-07-28","last_verified_at":"2026-11-08T09:24:44Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":102,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":102},"description":"Senior Forward Deployed Engineer\nAbout Us\nEliza is a technology services company and Advanced-tier OpenAI partner that’s dedicated to helping organizations build and deploy cutting-edge AI solutions. From generative AI and custom LLM integrations to predictive analytics and intelligent automation, we work across industries to bring real-world AI applications to life. Our projects combine deep technical expertise with hands-on client collaboration to solve high-impact problems.\nRole Overview\nThe Senior Forward Deployed Engineer (Senior FDE) executes the core technical work on our hardest client problems. This is a senior individual contributor role with real depth: you take ambiguous, high-stakes work from problem definition through shipped outcome, own the architecture and the tradeoffs, and set the technical standard clients experience.\nSenior FDEs go deep on a major engagement or workstream rather than broad across a portfolio. You are the person we send when the problem is genuinely difficult, the requirements are unclear, and the client needs someone who can hold the technical line while still shipping. You will review critical work before it reaches clients and lift the engineers around you through pairing, review, and example.\nThis role is for engineers who want the hardest technical problems and direct client exposure without trading hands-on work for a management track.\nKey Responsibilities\n1. Lead Complex Technical Delivery\nOwn end-to-end delivery quality for a major engagement, workstream, or solution area.\n\nTranslate ambiguous client needs into practical execution plans, technical milestones, and shipped outcomes.\n\nMaintain a clear view of status, risks, blockers, and dependencies within your scope.\n\nRaise quality concerns early and correct course before client confidence is affected.\n\n2. Own Architecture and Technical Tradeoffs\nLead solution architecture and technical decision-making for your workstream.\n\nMake pragmatic tradeoffs between speed, quality, scope, maintainability, cost, latency, and client value-and explain your reasoning.\n\nReview critical technical work before it is shared with clients or treated as production-ready.\n\nRecognize when a problem needs deeper expertise or a second set of eyes.\n\nTurn hard-won solutions into reusable patterns that raise the floor for future engagements.\n\n3. Build and Deploy Production AI Systems\nDesign and ship AI/ML solutions using Python, modern ML frameworks, LLM orchestration tooling, and cloud-native infrastructure.\n\nIntegrate LLMs and other generative models into client products and workflows at production quality.\n\nOwn fine-tuning, prompt engineering, retrieval, and evaluation pipelines where the problem calls for them.\n\nMake sound decisions about security, data privacy, and compliance constraints in enterprise environments.\n\n4. Earn and Maintain Client Trust\nAct as the senior technical voice on your engagement, credible with both engineers and executives.\n\nCommunicate direction, tradeoffs, risks, and progress clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.\n\nManage expectations with discipline when scope, timeline, data, or technical constraints change.\n\nKeep account and commercial partners informed so client strategy reflects delivery reality.\n\n5. Handle Risk with Judgment\nSpot technical, delivery, scope, timeline, and client-alignment risks early.\n\nResolve what you can directly; escalate what you cannot, with clear context, options, and a recommendation.\n\nIntervene decisively within your scope when quality, pace, or client confidence is at risk.\n\n6. Lift the Engineers Around You\nMentor less experienced FDEs through technical review, pairing, and practical feedback.\n\nHelp teammates make better architecture, implementation, and communication decisions.\n\nModel what excellent forward-deployed execution looks like in client-facing work.\n\nContribute to interview loops, onboarding, and technical standards.\n\nQualifications\nRequired\n5+ years of software engineering experience, including significant backend or full-stack depth.\n\nTrack record of independently owning complex, ambiguous technical work from definition through production.\n\nStrong programming skills in Python; fluency in at least one additional language (JavaScript/TypeScript, Go, or similar).\n\nDemonstrated experience delivering real-world ML/AI systems in production, not just prototypes.\n\nDeep comfort with modern cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), infrastructure-as-code, and CI/CD workflows.\n\nExcellent client communication: you can hold a room, explain a tradeoff, and deliver bad news early.\n\nSound architectural judgment and the instinct to escalate at the right moment rather than the last moment.\n\nPreferred\nSubstantial production experience with LLMs (e.g., Anthropic, OpenAI, Cohere), vector search, retrieval-augmented generation, or agentic systems.\n\nPrior consulting, professional services, solutions architecture, or forward-deployed engineering experience.\n\nFamiliarity with MLOps practices and tooling (e.g., MLflow, Weights & Biases, SageMaker).\n\nWorking knowledge of enterprise security, data privacy, and compliance constraints.\n\nExperience mentoring engineers through influence rather than authority.\n\nWhat We Offer\nCompetitive compensation (salary + annual bonus).\n\nEquity options in a growing AI services company.\n\nFully remote work\n\nRemote work perks include a WFH stipend and monthly lifestyle stipend\n\nA genuine senior IC track-technical leadership with real scope, without a forced move into people management.\n\nThe hardest problems in the portfolio, and the autonomy to solve them.\n\nFlexibility to work across industries and problem domains.\n\nA collaborative, mission-driven team passionate about the real-world impact of AI.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5751,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","LLM & Generative AI","AI Agents","AI Consulting & Integration"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-11T17:56:54Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":12,"band":"cold","label":"Long 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