Forward Deployed AI Engineer (FDE / Agentic Systems) - Applied AI
About the Opportunity
Engaged Headhunters has been retained to recruit a Forward Deployed AI Engineer (FDE) for a high-growth Applied AI organization deploying production LLM and agentic systems inside regulated enterprise environments (healthcare systems, power grid operators, and industrial supply chains).
Unlike research roles confined to sandboxed notebooks, this role sits directly at the engineering boundary between core foundation models and messy customer telemetry. You will work directly with customer C-suite and principal engineering stakeholders to scope, build, evaluate, and ship reliable multi-step AI systems into live production within 30 to 60 days.
Compensation & Package Structure
- Base Compensation: $210,000 to $265,000 annualized base salary depending on production systems track record
- Total Target Compensation: $285,000 to $390,000+ including meaningful early-stage/growth equity and customer go-live milestone bonuses
- Location & Travel: Remote-first across the United States (or hybrid out of San Francisco, New York, or Washington, D.C. hubs) with approximately 20% to 30% purposeful on-site customer architecture sprints
- Benefits: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, 401(k), home compute/hardware stipend, and dedicated research/conference budget
Core Technical Responsibilities
- Production Agent & RAG Architecture: Design, implement, and harden deterministic tool-calling pipelines, hybrid vector/lexical retrieval systems, and structured-output orchestration in Python and TypeScript.
- Evaluation Harnesses & Guardrails: Build automated golden-dataset evaluation suites, latency/token-cost telemetry, and hallucination/compliance guardrails (HIPAA, SOC 2, and NIST AI RMF aligned) prior to customer cutover.
- Enterprise Data & API Integration: Write resilient connectors into legacy enterprise systems (Epic/FHIR, ERP/MES, Snowflake, Databricks, and on-prem SQL/VPC environments) under strict security controls.
- Customer Executive Technical Leadership: Translate ambiguous operational bottlenecks from customer VPs and Directors into scoped engineering milestones and production deployments that renew and expand accounts.
Required Qualifications
- Experience: 4+ years of production software or machine learning engineering experience, including at least 18+ months shipping customer-facing LLM, RAG, or agentic workflows into live production (not just internal prototypes).
- Technical Stack: Deep fluency in Python, TypeScript/Node.js, modern LLM orchestration patterns, vector/search indexes (pgvector, Qdrant, Elasticsearch, or Pinecone), and cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure with Docker/Kubernetes/Terraform).
- Customer Presence: Track record of operating as a Forward Deployed Engineer, Staff Solutions Architect, or Founding Engineer working directly with enterprise technical buyers.
Confidential Inquiries
All inquiries are handled confidentially by Engaged Headhunters. Your current employer is never contacted without your explicit permission.
What Happens Next
- Submit your confidential application in under 2 minutes with no account required.
- A recruiter review of your background by Engaged Headhunters happens within 1 to 2 business days.
- We walk through scope, compensation, and the client team before introducing you directly to the hiring organization.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the base compensation for this Forward Deployed AI Engineer role?
Base compensation is $210,000 to $265,000 per year, as stated in the compensation section above.
Is my application confidential?
Yes. All inquiries are handled confidentially by Engaged Headhunters, and your current employer is never contacted without your explicit permission.