Forward Deployed AI Engineer

About this role

About Malleable AI

Malleable AI is a small AI services firm. We build production AI systems for enterprise clients (agent platforms, evals, MCP integrations, full stack apps), then train their teams to run those systems after we leave. We are profitable and founder led.

We are an engineering-led organization. We are bringing on a senior engineer to deliver alongside the founders. You will take the technical lead on client engagements and the engineers staffed on them.

The Opportunity

On any given engagement you are the technical lead, the architect, a senior builder, the manager of the Malleable engineers staffed with you, and the person who teaches the client's team to take the system over after we roll off.

You are a senior engineer who can lead an architecture conversation with a VP of Engineering on Monday, ship production code midweek, review PRs from your pod, and pair with the client's team on Friday. You do this while running two or three client engagements at a time.

This role suits people who want ownership of outcomes, variety across industries, and a direct hand in shaping how a small AI services firm grows up.

Compensation: $200,000 to $250,000 base, founding team equity, performance bonus.

What You'll Do

• Lead client engagements end to end. You own the technical relationship from discovery through handoff: stakeholder workshops, technical roadmap, and delivery against the business outcome.

• Lead the engineers staffed with you. Each engagement runs with a mix of engineers under your direction, including senior and staff peers. You set architectural direction, run PR review, and keep multiple engagements on track.

• Run remote first delivery. Discovery and standups in Slack and Zoom, async PR review, plus 2 to 3 onsite trips a year for kickoffs and major milestones.

• Architect the systems. Agent architectures, RAG pipelines, eval frameworks, multi agent orchestrations. Each one shaped to the client's stack, risk tolerance, and scale.

• Bu...