Forward Deployed Engineer (m/f/d)

KI performance GmbH; Köln; On-site; EUR 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

KI performance GmbH is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer (m/f/d) to lead hands-on implementation of AI-driven solutions in complex customer environments. You will combine NLP, LLMs, and speech technologies with strong software engineering to build scalable, production-ready systems on Azure.

This role is hands-on, AI-first, and delivery-focused with ownership of technical quality, scalability, and cost awareness.

Qualifications

• Senior, hands-on engineer with strong experience in applied AI and software engineering.

Responsibilities

• Understand the domain: analyze business processes and data relationships.
• Build AI solutions end-to-end focusing on NLP, LLMs, and speech models.
• Own software engineering quality: write production-ready code in Python, ensure reliability and observability.
• Deliver in customer environments: work with customers, Architects, and QA to deploy solutions.

Skills

Hands-on engineer

Applied AI

Delivery mindset

Git & CI/CD

Tools

FastAPI

async IO

Pydantic

Azure DevOps/GitHub/GitLab

Databricks

Job description

As a Forward Deployed Engineer (m/f/d), you will lead the hands-on implementation of AI-driven solutions in complex customer environments.

You combine deep expertise in NLP, LLMs, and speech technologies with strong software engineering skills to build robust, scalable, and production-ready systems. Working closely with customers and internal teams, you translate business processes, decision logic, and data flows into real-world AI applications — from intelligent assistants and speech-enabled systems to enterprise-grade integrations on Azure.

This is a hands-on, AI-first, delivery-focused role with strong ownership of technical quality, scalability, and operational excellence.

Your Responsibilities

Understand the Domain

• Analyze and structure business processes, decision logic, and data relationships.
• Challenge assumptions and refine requirements together with customers and stakeholders.
• Translate complex domain needs into clear, implementable technical solutions.

Build AI Solutions End-to-End

• Design and implement AI systems with a strong focus on NLP, LLMs, and speech models.
• Build agentic workflows, orchestration layers, tool integrations, and decision logic.
• Develop end-to-end solution flows that combine AI capabilities with backend and platform components.
• Apply structured LLM patterns such as tool calling, schema-validated outputs, retries, fallbacks, and guardrails.
• Integrate AI services into enterprise environments and production systems.

Own Software Engineering Quality

• Actively implement core application and integration logic — this is not a design-only role.
• Build maintainable, testable, and production-ready software in Python.
• Use modern engineering practices to ensure reliability, observability, security, and cost awareness.
• Improve development speed and quality through automation, testing, and AI-assisted engineering workflows.

Deliver in Customer Environments

• Work directly with customers in workshops, implementation sessions, and delivery phases.
• Drive technical solutioning together with Engineering Managers, Cloud AI Architects, and QA.
• Contribute to architecture decisions while maintaining a strong execution mindset.
• Take ownership of successful deployment and integration in real-world environments.

What We’re Looking For

Core Profile

• Very senior, hands‑on engineer with strong experience in applied AI and software engineering.
• Strong AI‑first mindset, with sound judgment on when AI — and especially LLMs — should or should not be used.
• Strong ownership mentality and delivery focus.
• Solid engineering practices with Git and CI/CD (Azure DevOps, GitHub, or GitLab).
• Production mindset: reliability, observability, security, and cost control.
• For candidate based in Germany - business‑level German and English. For Candidate based in Portugal - Business‑level English

AI / Applied ML Expertise

• Strong hands‑on experience with NLP, LLMs, and speech models.
• Experience building production‑grade solutions using LLMs, including structured orchestration, tool calling, and schema validation.
• Experience designing agent‑based or multi‑agent systems.
• Ability to implement retries, fallbacks, guardrails, and monitoring for AI systems.
• Strong understanding of the practical trade‑offs of latency, quality, cost, and reliability in AI applications.

Software Engineering & Integration

• Strong experience with parallel and asynchronous programming.
• Experience with modern Python frameworks and tooling, ideally including FastAPI, async IO, and Pydantic.
• Experience building production APIs and integrations, including error handling, retries, timeouts, and logging.
• Ability to design clear service contracts and integrate multiple internal and external systems.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, including clean architecture, testing, and maintainability.
• Strong understanding of infrastructure and deployment patterns on Azure.
• Experience operating solutions in enterprise Azure environments, including topics such as Managed Identity, Key Vault, monitoring, and basic networking.
• Experience with scalable deployment and integration of AI workloads in cloud environments.
• Experience with Databricks is a plus.

System Thinking

• Ability to design end‑to‑end AI solution architectures, including orchestration, session/state handling, and system boundaries.
• Thinks beyond models: understands platform constraints, integration challenges, and operational requirements.
• Considers latency, resilience, observability, and tool‑call minimization from day one.

Why Join Us?

• Exciting AI projects – work with cutting‑edge technologies across Azure, OpenAI, Databricks, and more.
• High‑performance culture – we are looking for doers who want to create real impact.
• Fast learning and career growth – benefit from top‑tier training, certifications, and hands‑on exposure to advanced AI delivery.
• Innovative company culture – we value hands‑on execution, team spirit, and AI‑driven excellence.
• Broad ecosystem – we work closely with partners, startups, and a strong network across the AI and cloud landscape.