Forward Deployed AI Architect

Role Overview

• Own the technical shape of AI systems deployed in customer environments
• Define how models, agents, data pipelines, APIs, and orchestration layers fit together, how those systems integrate with existing enterprise infrastructure, and how they are operated safely and reliably at scale. Their focus is on cross-cutting architectural patterns that span multiple customer systems, ensuring consistency, safety, and long-term evolvability across deployments
• Hands-on throughout the lifecycle—building reference implementations, reviewing and evolving production systems, and stepping in directly on high-risk or high-impact technical problems
• Accountable for architectural coherence across teams and over time, ensuring that systems remain composable, secure, observable, and adaptable as requirements evolve
• Investigate how AI systems, legacy systems, and human operators interact in practice.
• Identify failure modes, risk surfaces, and integration bottlenecks, and establish guardrails and patterns that allow teams to move quickly without sacrificing safety, auditability, or correctness
• Act as peers to senior technical leaders in customer engagements—whiteboarding architectures, pressure-testing assumptions, and translating business objectives into concrete, executable system designs. They influence direction through clarity of reasoning and demonstrated delivery, not escalation

Requirements

• 5+ years of software engineering experience
• Proven Ownership of Complex System Architecture: You have designed, built, and operated complex distributed systems in production, and have taken responsibility for how those systems evolve over time. You are comfortable making irreversible or high-impact architectural decisions and owning their consequences
• Depth in AI Systems and Integration: You can reason fluently about how AI components—models, agents, retrieval, evaluation, orchestration—interact with data platforms, APIs, and existing services. You understand how design choices affect reliability, latency, security, and debuggability in real deployments
• Strong Security and Risk Intuition: You bring a security-first mindset to system design, with practical experience around data access, identity, auditability, and compliance. You can articulate tradeoffs clearly and design systems that satisfy enterprise risk requirements without crippling velocity
• Hands-On Execution: You write and review production code, build critical integration paths, and stay close to the system. You are comfortable dropping into ambiguous, high-stakes technical situations and unblocking progress through direct execution
• Customer-Facing Technical Credibility: You can engage confidently with senior customer engineers and operators, ask sharp questions, and earn trust through technical depth and follow-through. You are able to represent Distyl as a long-term technical partner in complex enterprise environments
• Travel: Ability to travel 25-50%

Tech Stack

• Distributed Systems

Benefits

• The base salary range for this role is $130K – $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