Lead AI Engineer

About the role

Forward Deployed Engineer

Location: New York City, five days per week in office

Compensation: $180,000 base plus uncapped quarterly bonuses

Our client is a fast-growing, bootstrapped AI company helping Fortune 500 businesses become AI-native. The team embeds directly with customers to identify high-impact opportunities and build the production AI systems that deliver them.

Engineers work alongside leading AI labs and technology partners on complex enterprise problems across industries including healthcare, insurance, finance, retail, and private equity.

About the Role

This is a hands-on software engineering role, not a traditional Solutions Engineer or consulting position.

You will enter unfamiliar client environments, understand existing systems, and own AI applications from architecture through deployment and ongoing support. Every engineer is client-facing and must be able to explain technical concepts clearly to both engineers and nontechnical stakeholders.

What You’ll Do

Build and deploy production AI workflows and agentic systems

Own architecture, implementation, testing, deployment, and iteration

Ramp quickly into complex or legacy enterprise codebases

Work directly with client engineering teams

Use tools such as Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor to increase development speed

Design reliable, auditable systems that continue operating without your direct involvement

Travel occasionally for client engagements

What You’ll Bring

2–8 years of professional software engineering experience

Evidence of personally shipping production software end to end

Strong full-stack or product engineering fundamentals

Experience with AWS, GCP, or Azure

High agency, urgency, and comfort with ambiguity

Clear communication and confidence working with customers

Interest in AI systems and agentic development tools

Willingness to work in person five days per week in NYC

Strong backend, infrastructure, distributed systems, security, or ML engineers may also fit if they are open to working broadly across the stack.

Bonus Points

Experience shipping a production AI agent or LLM application

Former founder or founding engineer experience

Open-source contributions or public technical projects

Experience with agent evaluation, tracing, guardrails, or human-in-the-loop systems

Compensation and Benefits

The role offers a guaranteed $180,000 base salary plus uncapped quarterly bonuses tied to engineering output. Strong performers may earn approximately $270,000–$300,000+ in total annual cash compensation.

Benefits include medical, dental, vision, commuter benefits, employer-paid life and disability insurance, and responsible PTO.