Principal Forward Deployed Engineer - AI PlatformPrincipal Forward Deployed Engineer - AI Platform/Kubernetes/Pytorch
Core
Principal Forward Deployed Engineer operating at the technical frontier of Enterprise and Sovereign AI, writing production-grade code alongside strategic customers to solve high-stakes technical problems and upstream 70% of field-built primitives into global open-source communities.
Role type
Principal Forward Deployed Engineer (AI Platform)
Builds
Custom platform extensions, distributed inference systems, RAG pipelines, autonomous AI agent architectures, and secure on-premises AI deployment stacks.
Domain
Enterprise AI, Sovereign AI, Cloud-Native Infrastructure, Distributed Systems
Deliverable
production ML models | product features | infrastructure
Required skills
C/C++, Go, Python, Kubernetes architecture, deep learning frameworks, model fine-tuning (LoRA, QLoRA, SFT), LLM orchestration, hardware-level optimization (CUDA, ROCm), open-source upstream contribution, distributed computing scheduling, agent lifecycle management
Preferred skills
Kernel-level tuning for NPUs/GPUs, building hardware-optimized inference engine plugins, developing localized sovereign deployment stacks, implementing secure Agentic AI lifecycles, optimizing hyper-scale distributed inference systems
Technologies
Kubernetes, CRDs, Custom Operators, vLLM, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Docling, Kagenti, Model Context Protocol, Garak, Chatterbox
Responsibilities
Embed with strategic customers to resolve deep engineering blockers (SSO, legacy pipelines, air-gapped challenges); Architect future-proof solutions across multiple subsystems; Establish and monitor testing practices for large-scale AI systems; Rapidly prototype and develop custom, secure platform integrations; Harden POCs and MVPs into secure, robust production architectures; Act as a technical bridge between APAC requirements and global engineering teams; Commit upstream code to core open-source projects; Mentor junior and principal-level engineers; Drive strategic AI automation for large-scale operational systems
Seniority
Principal, hands-on IC with strategy & mentorship
