Eliza - Lead Forward Deployed Engineer
Requirements
• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with meaningful time in client-facing or field delivery roles. • Demonstrated ownership of delivery quality across multiple concurrent engagements or accounts. • Deep hands-on technical credibility: strong Python, production AI/ML delivery, and sound architectural judgment. You still read the code. • Proven experience developing engineers through direct, specific, timely feedback. • Excellent executive and technical communication—credible with a client CTO and with an engineer on the same day. • Deep comfort with modern cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), CI/CD, and production deployment practices. • Strong commercial awareness: you understand how delivery decisions affect account health and business outcomes. • Preferred • Substantial production experience with LLMs (e.g., Anthropic, OpenAI, Cohere), vector search, retrieval-augmented generation, or agentic systems. • Prior consulting, professional services, or engagement leadership experience in a technical services environment. • Familiarity with MLOps practices and tooling (e.g., MLflow, Weights & Biases, SageMaker). • Working knowledge of enterprise security, data privacy, and compliance constraints. • Experience scaling delivery standards across a growing team without becoming the bottleneck.
Responsibilities
• 1. Own Portfolio Delivery Quality • Maintain a clear view of delivery status, risks, blockers, and priorities across assigned accounts. • Ensure each engagement has a practical execution plan, clear ownership, and an appropriate technical path. • Hold every account team to Eliza's quality bar. • Intervene early when delivery quality, pace, client confidence, or execution discipline is at risk. • Keep delivery aligned to client outcomes, engagement scope, and business priorities. • 2. Set Technical Direction Across Engagements • Guide solution architecture and technical decision-making across multiple concurrent engagements. • Review critical work before it is shared with clients. • Ensure technical decisions are pragmatic, maintainable, and appropriate for each client's environment. • Help teams make clear tradeoffs between speed, quality, scope, and client value. • Identify when an engagement needs additional technical expertise or senior escalation. • 3. Coach and Develop the Field Team • Coach the engineers on your accounts based on their real engagement work, not abstractions. • Provide direct, timely, actionable feedback on technical execution, client communication, ownership, and judgment. • Help team members improve how they frame tradeoffs, manage ambiguity, and drive work to completion. • Run milestone retrospectives so teams learn from each phase of an engagement and adjust. • Recognize when someone is ready for more responsibility, and when someone needs more support. • Keep the team focused, motivated, and aligned around client outcomes. • 4. Maintain Client Confidence • Serve as the senior technical and delivery presence for clients across your portfolio. • Ensure client communication is clear, credible, and appropriately proactive. • Surface risks early and manage expectations with discipline. • Help clients understand the path from problem definition to shipped outcome. • Partner with account and commercial leadership so delivery realities are reflected in account strategy. • 5. Establish Execution Discipline • Define the right operating cadence for each account: internal reviews, client checkpoints, technical reviews. • Ensure work is broken down clearly and assigned to accountable owners. • Track commitments, decisions, blockers, and client feedback. • Create enough structure for teams to move quickly without unnecessary process. • Keep teams focused on outcomes rather than activity. • 6. Manage Delivery Risk and Escalation • Identify technical, staffing, scope, timeline, and client-alignment risks across the portfolio. • Decide when to coach the team through an issue versus when to intervene directly. • Escalate material risks to executive and account leadership with a clear recommendation. • Help the business distinguish between delivery issues, resourcing issues, scope issues, and client-alignment issues.
Benefits
• Competitive compensation (salary + deployment bonuses or client uplift incentives). • Equity options in a growing AI services company. • Fully remote work • Remote work perks include a WFH stipend and monthly lifestyle stipend • Real ownership of a client portfolio and the team delivering it. • A leadership role that keeps you technical and in the field. • Flexibility to work across industries and problem domains. • A collaborative, mission-driven team passionate about the real-world impact of AI.
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