Forward Deployment Engineer
$138k - $170k • Remote - US
Posted 17d ago
About the job
SambaNova is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to join our Customer Success Organization. In this role, you will embed directly with strategic enterprise customers to design, build, and deploy production Generative AI applications on SambaNova's SN40L platform and SambaStack product portfolio. You will architect and implement LLM-powered workflows, optimize AI inference performance on SambaNova hardware, and troubleshoot end-to-end production issues. This position requires translating customer needs into product requirements and serving as the voice of field reality to our Product and Engineering teams. You will also partner with sales teams to shape technical strategy and demonstrate platform differentiation.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, and deploy production GenAI applications on SambaNova's platform.
- Architect and implement LLM-powered workflows, including RAG pipelines and multi-agent systems.
- Optimize AI inference performance on SambaNova hardware and benchmark models.
- Troubleshoot and resolve production issues across model, software, and hardware layers.
- Translate customer needs into product requirements and engineering feedback.
- Partner with sales teams to shape technical sales strategy and scope engagements.
- Develop reusable accelerators, reference architectures, and internal playbooks.
- Present technical findings and architecture decisions at customer and internal forums.
Requirements
- 5+ years of hands-on engineering experience shipping production AI/ML systems.
- Deep expertise in GenAI application development, including LLM orchestration, RAG, and agentic frameworks.
- Strong foundations in ML fundamentals like model training, fine-tuning, and inference optimization.
- Proficiency in Python; working knowledge of C++ or CUDA is a plus.
- Experience deploying AI workloads on cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP).
- Familiarity with containerization, orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker), and MLOps tooling.
- Comfortable engaging directly with customers, including running technical discovery and presenting to executive audiences.
- Bachelor's or graduate degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or equivalent practical experience.
- Willingness to travel up to 50% to customer sites.
Benefits
- Base Salary Range: $138,000 - $170,000 USD