Forward Deployed Engineer
Lightning AI5 months ago
London, United Kingdom +3 moreSenior
Base Salary
$120k - $250k/yr
Responsibilities
- Partner with customers to design, implement, and deploy end-to-end AI systems and workflows on Lightning AI’s platform.
- Translate ambiguous customer objectives into technical specifications, proof-of-concepts, and scalable production implementations.
- Own customer technical engagements from discovery and architecture through deployment, monitoring, and expansion.
- Develop and maintain production-grade software, with a strong preference for Python.
- Build reliable and observable systems optimized for latency, throughput, quality, scalability, and cost.
- Debug and optimize AI systems across inference infrastructure, model behavior, APIs, and distributed workloads.
- Support customer engineering teams throughout AI deployment, scaling, and production operations.
- Collaborate with internal product and engineering teams to improve platform capabilities and influence roadmap priorities.
- Select appropriate tools and approaches, navigate ambiguity, and deliver high-quality outcomes for customers and internal teams.
Requirements
- Strong production software engineering experience in one or more general-purpose programming languages, with Python strongly preferred.
- Direct customer experience in highly technical environments such as Forward Deployed Engineering, Solutions Engineering, Applied AI Engineering, or related roles.
- Familiarity with AI/ML pipelines and model development, evaluation, deployment, and monitoring lifecycles.
- Experience deploying and operating production AI/ML systems in cloud or distributed environments.
- Familiarity with modern AI infrastructure and tooling, including Docker, Kubernetes, model serving systems, and distributed inference workloads.
- Strong communication and collaboration skills with customers, engineers, and cross-functional stakeholders.
- Ability to translate business needs into technical solutions and drive projects from concept through production delivery.
- Ability to work effectively in ambiguous, fast-moving, high-growth environments.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field.
- Preferred qualifications include large-scale production AI/ML experience, familiarity with vLLM, TensorRT, Ray, LangGraph, vector databases, workflow orchestration, inference optimization, distributed systems, GPU-accelerated workloads, startup environments, and an advanced technical degree.
Benefits
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage in the U.S.; private medical and dental insurance in the U.K.
- Retirement and financial wellness support in the U.S.; pension contribution in the U.K.
- Generous paid time off and holidays.
- Paid parental leave.
- Professional development support.
- Wellness and work-from-home stipends.
- Flexible work environment.
- Based in a New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, or London hub with at least two in-office days per week and occasional team and company offsites.
Tech Stack
Categories
Forward DeployedML Engineering
About Lightning AI
Lightning AI builds an end-to-end platform for prototyping, training, and deploying AI systems, alongside open-source tools such as PyTorch Lightning and torchmetrics. It offers a browser-based studio and managed GPU infrastructure for teams ranging from solo researchers to large enterprises, with built-in observability and controls. Founded in 2019 and headquartered in New York, the company merged with Voltage Park to pair developer-first software with large-scale, cost-efficient compute.