Forward Deployed Engineer

ABOUT DISTYL AI

Distyl is an applied AI technology company partnering with the world’s most ambitious institutions to rearchitect critical operations for the frontier of AI. Our customers include the largest companies in telecom, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, consumer goods, and global social organizations.

We research and deploy technologies that power AI-native operations — both for our partners and for Distyl itself. Our work spans research into self-constructing systems, the development of the most reliable execution of AI systems, and products that transform mission-critical workflows. As a result, Distyl's technologies affect some of the world's largest operations — from hundreds of millions of consumer interactions to tens of millions of supply chain transactions and millions of patient journeys.

Distyl is backed by leading investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Coatue, DST Global, and the board-members of 20+ F500s. The results reflect this approach: a 100% production deployment success rate for our customers and one of the few enterprise AI companies to run a profitable business.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

At Distyl, Forward Deployed AI Engineers build and operate AI systems that deliver real business value inside customer environments. This role is for engineers who thrive in ambiguous problem spaces, take ownership of outcomes, and are excited to work directly on production AI systems that must perform reliably under real-world constraints.

Forward Deployed AI Engineers are hands-on builders who design, deploy, and iterate on end-to-end AI systems. They work close to customers to understand real requirements, translate them into concrete system designs, and continuously improve system behavior through evaluation, iteration, and integration. Their focus is not on demos or experiments in isolation, but on making AI systems work in practice.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Own the behavior and performance of AI systems deployed for customers
• Design and implement compound AI workflows that combine models, agents, retrieval, evaluation, and execution into coherent, production-ready systems aligned with real SME needs
• Operate on live systems, measuring behavior, identifying failure modes, and iterating rapidly to improve quality, reliability, and usefulness. This includes designing prompts and agent logic, building evaluation frameworks, integrating feedback loops, and using AI-driven tools to accelerate debugging and experimentation
• Integrate AI systems into customer data platforms, APIs, and existing applications. You'll make pragmatic system design decisions that balance speed, robustness, and maintainability, and ensure systems remain understandable and operable over time
• Work directly with customer stakeholders—often in high-visibility settings—and are expected to reason clearly about system behavior, tradeoffs, and limitations.
• Take accountability for outcomes in production and adapt systems as requirements evolve

WHAT WE REQUIRE

• 2+ years of software engineering experience
• Ownership Mentality for AI Systems: You take responsibility for whether an AI system actually delivers its intended value in production. You are comfortable making independent technical decisions across system design, evaluation, and integration, and owning the results of those decisions
• Experience Building AI Systems, Not Just Calling APIs: Built applications powered by LLMs or other AI models and are comfortable composing multiple components—prompts, agents, tools, retrieval, evaluators—into end-to-end systems. You reason about system behavior holistically rather than treating models as black boxes
• Strong Engineering Fundamentals: Write clean, maintainable Python and are comfortable building and operating real systems. You understand core engineering concepts like versioning, debugging, testing, and performance, and can build systems that hold up under real usage and scrutiny
• AI-Native Working Style: Use AI tools daily to write and debug code, explore designs, analyze data, and automate repetitive work. You are curious about new model capabilities and techniques, and actively incorporate them into how you build and iterate on systems
• Comfort in Customer Environments: Able to work directly with customer teams, ask good questions, and adapt quickly to new domains. You communicate clearly about system behavior and limitations, and can operate effectively in high-trust, high-visibility situations
• Travel: Travel between 10-50% of the time, depending on the project, your role and level of interest in doing so

WHAT WE OFFER

• The base salary range for this role is $150K – $250K, depending on experience, location, and level. In addition to base compensation, this role is eligible for meaningful equity, along with a comprehensive benefits package
• 100% covered medical, dental, and vision for employees and dependents
• 401(k) with additional perks (e.g., commuter benefits, in‑office lunch)
• Access to state‑of‑the‑art models, generous usage of modern AI tools, and real‑world business problems
• Ownership of high‑impact projects across top enterprises
• A mission‑driven, fast‑moving culture that prizes curiosity, pragmatism, and excellence

Distyl has offices in San Francisco and New York. This role follows a hybrid collaboration model with 3+ days per week (Tuesday–Thursday) in‑office.

We’re grateful for the strong interest in this role. The best way to get your profile in front of our team is to apply directly through our careers page, where all applications are reviewed. Due to the high volume of interest, we’re not able to review or respond to all direct emails or LinkedIn messages. We will be in touch with every applicant once we’ve completed our review, regardless of the decision.

#LI-Hybrid

We believe diverse perspectives make our work stronger and more impactful. We are an equal opportunity employer and evaluate all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply.