Forward Deployed AI Engineer (Senior/Principal Level)

Cloudera

Austin (TX)

On-site

USD 180,000 - 240,000

Full time

14 days+

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Benefits offered by this job

Generous PTO Policy

Unplugged Days

Flexible WFH Policy

Wellness programs

Phone and Internet Reimbursement

Continued Career Development

Comprehensive Benefits

Job summary

Cloudera is seeking a seasoned Forward Deployed AI Engineer to embed with customers and design scalable, production-grade AI/ML solutions. You will build full-stack AI apps, partner with strategic customers, and shape enterprise AI architectures that align with security and governance standards.

You should have strong hands-on software and data engineering, deep experience with foundation models, RAG, and agentic workflows, and the ability to operate autonomously in dynamic client environments.

Qualifications

7+ years building and deploying production-grade systems.
2-4 years building ML systems or GenAI/agentic applications.
Hands-on software engineering, data engineering, and applied AI/ML skills.
Experience with foundation models, context engineering, fine-tuning, semantic search, RAG, and agentic workflows.
LLMOps/MLOps practices including evaluation, observability, serving, monitoring, and lifecycle management.
Ability to engage with customers (technical and exec) and translate needs into technical strategy.
High agency to operate autonomously in fast-moving environments.
Collaborative mindset with mentorship and reusable tooling.
Bachelor/Master/PhD or equivalent experience.

Responsibilities

Build & Prototype AI Apps on Cloudera to demonstrate AI and agentic systems for enterprise use cases.
Partner with Strategic Customers to drive AI use cases from prototype to production.
Shape Enterprise AI Architecture and advise on roadmaps, deployment, and design.
Codify patterns into repeatable reference architectures, productized solutions, starter kits, and playbooks.
Mentor teams and contribute to resources that improve our AI platform and products.

Skills

Full-stack ML engineering

ML systems

GenAI/agentic apps

LLMOps/MLOps

Context engineering

Fine-tuning

Semantic search

RAG

Agentic workflows

Enterprise AI architecture

Education

Bsc/Msc/PhD in related field or equivalent experience

Tools

NVIDIA GPUs

Cloudera platform

Spark

Iceberg

NiFi

Job description

At Cloudera, we empower people to transform complex data into clear and actionable insights. With as much data under management as the hyperscalers, we're the preferred data partner for the top companies in almost every industry. Powered by the relentless innovation of the open source community, Cloudera advances digital transformation for the world's largest enterprises.

About Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) at Cloudera

Cloudera's Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) function sits within the Applied AI organization, and is a specialized AI/ML engineering team focused on accelerating AI adoption within our most strategic enterprise customers. We embed directly with customers to rapidly pilot AI use cases, solve real-world business challenges, and help operationalize advanced AI capabilities within enterprise environments.

Cloudera FDEs operate at the intersection of customer engineering, AI innovation, and enterprise deployment - driving high-impact AI outcomes for customers and codifying solution patterns for repeatable delivery at scale.

About the role

Cloudera is looking for a seasoned full-stack ML engineer who can embed with customers to design technical use cases, and ship scalable enterprise AI/ML solutions on Cloudera. As a Forward Deployed AI Engineer you will:

Build & Prototype AI Apps - Develop full-stack AI/ML applications on Cloudera to demonstrate how AI and agentic systems solve real enterprise use cases
Partner with Strategic Customers - Work directly with customer teams to drive AI and agentic use cases from early prototype toward production readiness
Shape Enterprise AI Architecture - Advise customer leaders on AI roadmaps, solution design, deployment, and AI use cases
Codify Solution Patterns - Standardize successful patterns into repeatable reference architectures, productized solutions, starter kits, and internal playbooks
Multiply impact - Be a thought leader, mentor Cloudera teams, and contribute to resources that grow our AI capability. Channel field and customer signal back to Product teams to improve our AI platform and products

We are excited if you have:

7+ years of experience building and deploying production-grade systems, including 2-4 years experience building ML systems or GenAI/agentic applications
Strong hands-on software engineering, data engineering, and applied AI/ML skills, with experience building full-stack ML applications or agentic systems using modern AI frameworks and tooling
Experience with foundation models, context engineering, fine-tuning, semantic search, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and agentic workflows
Deep understanding of LLMOps/MLOps practices including evaluation, observability, serving, monitoring, and lifecycle management
Experience designing and implementing scalable AI solution architectures aligned to enterprise standards (security, governance, compliance, etc.)
The ability to engage directly with customers, both technical and executive audiences - to translate needs into actionable technical strategy
High agency with the ability to operate autonomously and thrive in ambiguous, fast-moving customer environments
A collaborative mindset and passion for enabling others through mentorship, internal enablement, or reusable tooling
Bsc/Msc/PhD in related field or equivalent experience

You may also have:

Experience with cloud technologies (AWS, Azure, GCP)
Experience using the Cloudera platform
Experience with open source big data technologies like Spark, Iceberg, NiFi, etc
Experience with AI infrastructure and runtime technologies including NVIDIA GPUs, inference optimization, model serving, or distributed AI workloads

This role is not eligible for immigration support or relocation.

What you can expect from us: