{"id":4002948,"url":"https://alion.io/job/pika-forward-deployed-engineer-applied-ai","title":"Forward Deployed Engineer, Applied AI","company":{"id":48170,"name":"Pika","domain":"pika.art","url":"https://alion.io/company/pika","size_band":"201-500","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":"2026-11-09T06:03:00Z"}},"role":"Solutions","role_family":"Solutions","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Palo Alto, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"Pika","optional":false},{"name":"Post-training","optional":false},{"name":"LoRA","optional":true},{"name":"PEFT","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-10T02:23:17Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-10","last_verified_at":"2026-11-10T04:42:07Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"About the role\nAt Pika, we're looking for a technically strong, client-facing AI researcher who can turn customer feedback into models and workflows that solve real business needs. You'll work directly with clients to understand what they want to achieve, identify where current model outputs fall short, and fine-tune or post-train models for their use cases. When the solution calls for more than model adaptation, you'll build the supporting workflow.\nThis is a full-time, hands-on, revenue-driven applied research role. Clear communication, professional client service, reliable delivery, and independent execution matter as much as technical ability. You'll help clients get value quickly, build their confidence in working with Pika, and help turn successful technical work into closed engagements and ongoing business.\nWhat you'll do\nUnderstand the client's needs. Listen carefully, ask focused questions, and translate requests and feedback into a clear problem, practical scope, and agreed success criteria.\n\nAdapt models for real use cases. Fine-tune and post-train models to address client needs. Prepare relevant examples and evaluation criteria, diagnose gaps, and verify that each iteration improves the outcomes the client cares about.\n\nBuild the complete solution. Create or adapt workflows around models when needed, connecting APIs, tools, and processing steps into a usable solution that fits the client's deployment needs.\n\nIterate quickly with clients. Share working results early, gather specific feedback, and make focused improvements in short cycles. Balance quality, complexity, cost, and delivery speed to keep projects moving.\n\nCommunicate professionally. Explain technical options and limitations clearly, set realistic expectations, respond thoughtfully to requests, and keep clients informed about progress and next steps. Build a relationship that makes them want to continue working with Pika.\n\nOwn execution and coordinate with the team. Drive day-to-day work with independence while keeping teammates aligned on requirements, priorities, progress, and blockers. Ask for input or escalate risks early when needed.\n\nDeliver for deployment. Help move successful experiments into usable deployments, with clear evaluation results, reproducible workflows, and the documentation needed for handoff.\n\nHelp close client engagements. Demonstrate the solution's value, address technical concerns, and work with the team to turn successful iterations into client commitments and revenue.\n\nWhat we're looking for\nHands-on experience fine-tuning or post-training generative AI models, with the ability to diagnose model behavior and evaluate whether an adaptation solves the intended problem.\n\nStrong coding and practical ML skills: you can implement experiments, work with data, debug model pipelines, and build supporting workflows.\n\nExcellent listening and communication skills. You can understand an ambiguous request, clarify what matters, and explain technical work to clients with different levels of expertise.\n\nProfessional judgment, reliability, and a service mindset. You handle feedback constructively, communicate limitations honestly, take ownership of commitments, and build trust through consistent follow-through.\n\nIndependence and ownership, combined with strong communication and collaboration within the team.\n\nThe ability to work in fast feedback cycles, prioritize the highest-impact improvements, and connect technical decisions to client value and commercial outcomes.\n\nPreferred experience\nPrior professional experience in a similar client-facing AI or ML role, with end-to-end delivery from requirements and model adaptation through evaluation, integration, and deployment. This experience is strongly preferred.\n\nDelivering reliable AI solutions for external clients or users and supporting them through feedback and iteration.\n\nLoRA fine-tuning, other parameter-efficient adaptation methods, or feedback-driven post-training.\n\nBuilding model evaluation pipelines, API integrations, or workflows used in a deployed product.\n\nParticipating in customer demos, technical pilots, or the delivery of paid projects.\n\nWhat success looks like\nSuccess is measured by how well you serve clients, how quickly you turn feedback into useful improvements, and how reliably your work meets their deployment needs. Strong performance builds client trust, helps close engagements, encourages continued collaboration, and contributes to revenue.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4476,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","LLM & Generative AI","AI Agents","Generative Video"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-10T04:42:07Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":29,"reasons":["conf:1","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-10T06:27:53Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/pika-forward-deployed-engineer-applied-ai","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/pika-forward-deployed-engineer-applied-ai.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-10T06:27:53Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":15042,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-11T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":48170},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=48170"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fpika-forward-deployed-engineer-applied-ai"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fpika-forward-deployed-engineer-applied-ai"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fpika-forward-deployed-engineer-applied-ai"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/pika-forward-deployed-engineer-applied-ai\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fpika-forward-deployed-engineer-applied-ai"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":4002948}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"pika.art","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":4002948},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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