Forward Deployed AI Engineer, Customer Adoption and Innovation

Forward Deployed AI Engineer

The Red Hat AI Customer Adoption and Innovation (CAI) team is looking for a North-America based Forward Deployed AI Engineer to join our rapidly growing AI Business Unit.

Note to applicants: We are looking to hire an AI Specialist, not to hire the AI itself. If you really think you are a good fit for this position, please include a cover letter in which you answer the following questions:

• What do you expect to change in the world of AI in the next 2 years?
• Which sentence from the job description resonated with you the most, and why?

As inference technologies become more mainstream, our customers are seeking deep expertise in optimization, scalability, and production readiness. In this role, you will act as a bridge between engineering and the customer's environment. You will be deployed to support lighthouse customer engagements, ensuring that Red Hat AI inference products are successfully implemented, tuned, and optimized to meet specific business requirements.

We are looking for a hands-on practitioner who understands that technical implementation must serve a business constraint—whether that's cost, latency, or throughput. You will work directly with customers to design and deploy and optimize complex AI inference solutions, while simultaneously capturing those lessons to enable our wider field teams.

You must have significant experience (10+ years) as consultant or technical architect. You must also have a really good understanding of inference and inference optimization, as well as practical and relevant experience.

While you will have the support of the wider CAI team to upskill on specific AI technologies, you must bring a strong consulting mindset and deep technical expertise in OpenShift or Kubernetes platform engineering as well as a deep understanding of LLMs, Generative AI, and Inference.

This position can be remote, but the candidate has to be located in North America, United States preferred, and willing to travel as required, up to 20% of the time.

What you will do

• Lead Lighthouse Implementations: Lead the technical delivery for critical, high-profile customer Proofs of Concept (POCs) and production pilots. You will be the primary technical expert hands-on with the customer, helping them navigate the complexities of LLM inference in their specific clusters.
• Optimization & Architecture: Provide expert advice on inference sizing, configuration, and resource management. You will guide customers on how to best configure their OpenShift environments to support computationally intensive AI workloads.
• Field Enablement & Asset Creation: Enable our field teams by turning lessons from customer engagements into reusable assets. You will develop reference architectures, field manuals, and validated patterns that allow other AI specialists to execute similar engagements independently.
• Stakeholder Communication: Translate technical metrics into business value. You will be expected to communicate effectively with both technical teams (DevOps, SREs) and business stakeholders to justify architecture decisions.
• Product Feedback Loop: Act as a liaison between the customer and the Product and Engineering teams. You will ensure that real-world feedback regarding platform performance and usability is properly prioritized in the product roadmap.

What you will bring

• Consulting & Architecture Experience (5 - 10 years' experience): Proven experience in a technical consulting, professional services, or solutions architect role. You are comfortable leading the delivery of complex technical solutions and managing customer expectations in a post-sales or implementation environment.
• Deep OpenShift or Kubernetes Expertise (5+ years' experience): You possess extensive hands-on experience with OpenShift or Kubernetes. You deeply understand how to deploy, scale, and manage complex workloads, operator lifecycles, and resource quotas in a containerized environment.
• Performance & Optimization Mindset: You have a background or strong interest in system performance. You understand concepts regarding latency, throughput, and efficient resource utilization.
• Inference background (3+ years' experience): You should already have familiarity with inference technologies such as Kserve, vLLM, and potentially llm-d.
• Functional Python Skills: You are capable of reading and writing Python code to script automation or interact with necessary libraries.
• Communication Skills: Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English. You can confidently present to audiences ranging from operations teams to business leadership.

Preferred Experience (Bonus Points)

• Familiarity with the AI Stack: Experience with tools like llm-compressor, guidellm, etc..
• Networking Knowledge: Understanding of networking concepts (L7/Gateway API) or high-performance computing networking.
• Model Tuning Experience: Exposure to post-training techniques such as knowledge distillation, LoRA/QLoRA, or quantization.

Please Note: Red Hat will not be providing visa sponsorship for this position. Therefore, in order to be considered for this position, you must have the ability to work without a need for current or future visa sponsorship.

The salary range for this position is $118,600.00 - $195,680.00. Actual offer will be based on your qualifications.

Red Hat determines compensation based on several factors including but not limited to job location, experience, applicable skills and training, external market value, and internal pay equity. Annual salary is one component of Red Hat's compensation package. This position may also be eligible for bonus, commission, and/or equity. For positions with Remote-US locations, the actual salary range for the position may differ based on location but will be commensurate with job duties and relevant work experience.

Red Hat is the world's leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver high-performing Linux, cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. Spread across 40+ countries, our associates work flexibly across work environments, from in-office, to office-flex, to fully remote, depending on the requirements of their role. Red Hatters are encouraged to bring their best ideas, no matter their title or tenure. We're a leader in open source because of our open and inclusive environment. We hire creative, passionate people ready to contribute their ideas, help solve complex problems, and make an impact.

Benefits Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage Flexible Spending Account - healthcare and dependent care Health Savings Account - high deductible medical plan Retirement 401(k) with employer match Paid time off and holidays Paid parental leave plans for all new parents Leave benefits including disability, paid family medical leave, and paid military leave Additional benefits including employee stock purchase plan, family planning reimbursement, tuition reimbursement, transportation expense account, employee assistance program, and more!

Note: These benefits are only applicable to full time, permanent associates at Red Hat located in the United States.

Inclusion at Red Hat Red Hat's culture is built on the open source principles of transparency, collaboration, and inclusion, where the best ideas can come from anywhere and anyone. When this is realized, it empowers people from different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences to come together to share ideas, challenge the status quo, and drive innovation. Our aspiration is that everyone experiences this culture with equal opportunity and access, and that all voices are not only heard but also celebrated. We hope you will join our celebration, and we welcome and encourage applicants from all the beautiful dimensions that compose our global village.

Equal Opportunity Policy (EEO) Red Hat is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We review applications for employment without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, veteran status, genetic information, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, or any other basis prohibited by law.