Forward Deployed Engineer

The 8800; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary + performance bonus

Full benefits

Dedicated time for AI learning andside

Job summary

The 8800 is an AI-native product development company hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to embed with client teams and own the technical delivery of AI products inside client organizations. You’ll ship production-grade AI solutions, debug in production, and coach client engineers while traveling to sites as needed.

Expect to work directly with Fortune 500s and startups, using LLMs, RAG, and varied data stacks.

Qualifications

• Shipped software in production with enterprise data.
• Hands-on with LLMs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral) including prompt engineering and RAG.
• Proficient in Python and at least one cloud platform (AWS/GCP/Azure).
• Willing to travel to client sites 25–50% of the time.
• Excellent communication and ability to explain complex concepts clearly.

Responsibilities

• Embed with client teams to own technical delivery of AI products.
• Design, configure, and stabilize AI-powered products in production.
• Translate business requirements into working AI systems quickly.
• Debug production issues on-site with stakeholders watching.
• Train client engineers and act as THE 8800's technical voice in engagements.

Skills

LLM integrations

Prompt engineering

4+ years software engineering

Python

Cloud platforms

Communication

Travel readiness

Tools

AWS

GCP

Azure

Snowflake

Databricks

dbt

Job description

Location: Full-Time · Sydney, Australia (or Remote with travel)

You ship AI in the real world — not the demo

Most engineers build products and hand them off. You stay until they work. As a Forward Deployed Engineer at THE 8800, you'll embed directly with our clients — Fortune 500s, high-growth startups, VC-backed companies — and own the technical delivery of AI products inside their organizations. You're not a consultant who writes decks. You write code, debug integrations, and make judgment calls that move the product forward.

What you'll do

You’ll work embedded in client teams — typically 4–12 weeks per engagement — building, configuring, and stabilizing AI-powered products. Day to day that means:

• Designing and shipping RAG pipelines, AI agents, and LLM integrations tailored to the client's data and workflows
• Translating vague business requirements into working systems — fast
• Debugging production issues under pressure, on-site, with stakeholders watching
• Training client engineers and teams on how to operate and extend what you've built
• Acting as the technical voice of THE 8800 in the room — credible, direct, and clear

What we're looking for

You've shipped software in production. You know how messy real enterprise data is. You're comfortable being the smartest person in the room and also admitting what you don't know.

Must have:

• 4+ years of software engineering experience
• Hands-on experience building with LLMs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, etc.) — prompt engineering, RAG, fine-tuning, evals
• Strong Python; proficiency in at least one cloud platform (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• Ability to travel to client sites (25–50%)
• Excellent communication — you can explain a vector database to a CFO and a token budget to a junior dev

Nice to have:

• Experience with enterprise data stacks (Snowflake, Databricks, dbt)
• Background in a Big 4, Palantir, or other client-embedded technical role
• Startup experience — you've had to build things before the requirements were clear

Why THE 8800

We're an AI-native product development company with 75 engineers, 18 AI specialists, and a track record of building real products for companies like UFC, Toyota, Freyr Energy, and Kindly Human. We don't do staff augmentation — we build, and we own outcomes.

Build with us.

You’ll work on real AI products — not proofs of concept that die in a slide deck. Every engagement ships something that matters.

Launch with us.

You’ll be in the room when products go live, owning the technical outcome alongside the client. No handoffs. No hiding behind a project manager.

Grow with us.

You’ll work across industries and problem spaces that most engineers never see. We invest in your learning — with dedicated time, budget, and a team of 18 AI specialists to learn from.

• Offices in Dallas, TX · Perth, AU · Stuttgart, DE
• Competitive salary + performance bonus
• Full benefits
• Dedicated time and budget for your own AI learning and side experiments

Apply

We'd love to hear from you. Tell us about a technical problem you solved that required both engineering and communication to get right.