Lead AI Engineer

Job Description

Forward Deployed Engineer

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

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Compensation: $180,000 base plus uncapped quarterly bonuses ($300k+ typical total compensation)

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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.

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

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About the Role

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

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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.

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What You’ll Do

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• Build and deploy production AI workflows and agentic systems
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• Own architecture, implementation, testing, deployment, and iteration
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• Ramp quickly into complex or legacy enterprise codebases
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• Work directly with client engineering teams
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• Use tools such as Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor to increase development speed
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• Design reliable, auditable systems that continue operating without your direct involvement
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• Travel occasionally for client engagements
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What You’ll Bring

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• 2–8 years of professional software engineering experience
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• Evidence of personally shipping production software end to end
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• Strong full-stack or product engineering fundamentals
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• Experience with AWS, GCP, or Azure
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• High agency, urgency, and comfort with ambiguity
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• Clear communication and confidence working with customers
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• Interest in AI systems and agentic development tools
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• Willingness to work in person five days per week in NYC
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Strong backend, infrastructure, distributed systems, security, or ML engineers may also fit if they are open to working broadly across the stack.

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Bonus Points

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• Experience shipping a production AI agent or LLM application
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• Former founder or founding engineer experience
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• Open-source contributions or public technical projects
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• Experience with agent evaluation, tracing, guardrails, or human-in-the-loop systems
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Compensation and Benefits

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

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

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