Forward Deployed Engineer

Title: Forward Deployed Engineer

Start Date: 08/21/2026

End Date:

# of Openings: 1

Position Type: Contract

Locations: Chicago,

Additional Details:

3-6 months of contract with chances of extension

Only W2

Candidates must be based in one of the following areas: Chicago metro, San Francisco Bay area, Dallas metro on NY metro areas. The role is remote, but there may be occasions when they have to be onsite in one of those client locations for meetings on short notice.

Description:

Summary:

As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will operate at the front lines of innovation embedded directly with subject matter experts, product, and engineering teams to rapidly design, architect, prototype, and deploy solutions that solve high-priority business problems. This is not a traditional engineering role with long delivery cycles. You will be expected to go from concept to working prototype in days, not months, while maintaining enterprise-grade standards for quality, security, and scalability. You bring an exceptional combination of skills: deep hands-on engineering experience across AI agents and full-stack development, and the interpersonal skills to earn trust, drive alignment, and influence without authority. You are equally comfortable whiteboarding a system architecture with senior stakeholders and writing production code the same afternoon. You have direct experience developing agents on platforms like AWS Agent Core, and you thrive in fast, ambiguous environments where creative thinking and execution speed matter.

Responsibilities:

• Solution Design & Architecture
  • Lead solution design for complex, cross-functional data and AI problems from initial discovery through to technical blueprint.
  • Define and communicate architecture decisions, trade-offs, and delivery approaches to both technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Design scalable, modular systems that balance the need for speed with enterprise standards for reliability, security, and maintainability.
  • Participate in architecture reviews, ensuring alignment with enterprise patterns and platform standards.
  • Create clear technical documentation: architecture diagrams, data flow maps, API contracts, and solution briefs.
• Rapid Prototyping & Solution Delivery
  • Design and deliver working prototypes for complex data and AI problems within compressed timeframes, often days to weeks.
  • Translate ambiguous business requirements into concrete technical solutions with minimal hand-holding.
  • Balance speed of delivery with enterprise standards your prototypes are production-ready, not throwaway.
  • Continuously iterate on solutions based on direct feedback from product managers, program leads, and end users.
  • Develop intuitive front-end interfaces and dashboards that bring data and AI outputs to life for business users.
  • Apply strong UX instincts to simplify complex flows and make agent outputs accessible and actionable for non-technical stakeholders.
• AI Agent Development
  • Design, build, and deploy AI agents and multi-agent systems that automate complex workflows end-to-end.
  • Develop and maintain agent skills discrete, reusable capabilities that compose into larger agentic pipelines.
  • Implement and extend Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and clients to connect AI agents with enterprise tools, APIs, and data sources.
  • Design evaluation harnesses, guardrails, and monitoring pipelines to ensure agent reliability and safety in production.
  • Stay current with the rapidly evolving agentic AI landscape and proactively introduce new techniques and tooling to the team.
  • Integrate LLMs, RAG systems, and ML models into production workflows.
• Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement
  • Embed directly with product, program, and engineering teams to co-define problems and co-deliver solutions.
  • Influence technical direction and build alignment across teams without relying on formal authority.
  • Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to non-technical business stakeholders in writing, in meetings, and in executive presentations.
  • Mentor and elevate junior engineers, sharing patterns and practices for agentic development, prompt design, and rapid delivery.
  • Foster a collaborative, low-ego team culture where speed and quality go hand in hand.