Forward Deployed CTO

Tribe AI; United States; On-site; USD 300,000 - 450,000; Full time

Job summary

Tribe AI seeks a Forward Deployed CTO to own the technical transformation for 1–2 enterprise accounts. You’ll set architecture direction, lead cross‑functional teams, and drive outcomes that endure beyond engagements.

You’ll translate field learnings into reusable Tribe IP, frameworks, and deployment playbooks, building a scalable, customer‑facing engineering organization. A founder‑operator mindset is essential.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of engineering experience with AI/ML and production systems.
• Founded a company or built a 0-to-1 product as a technical lead.
• Strong command of modern AI stack: LLMs, agentic frameworks, RAG, vector infra, cloud deployment.

Responsibilities

• Own technical delivery across 1–2 enterprise accounts—set direction and outcomes.
• Translate business problems into architectural decisions for C‑suite stakeholders.
• Build reusable Tribe IP: architecture patterns, deployment playbooks, evaluation frameworks.

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

12+ years engineering experience

AI/ML and production systems

Executive presence

Tools

Cloud platforms

Job description

About Tribe AI

Tribe embeds senior AI engineers and technical leaders directly into enterprise clients to drive AI transformation that actually ships. We're not a traditional consulting firm — we're operators who build alongside clients, own outcomes, and leave behind systems and capabilities that endure.

About The Role

The Forward Deployed CTO is a field executive who owns the technical transformation of a focused portfolio of enterprise clients — and uses that work to build something lasting for Tribe. This isn't a delivery management role. You're not running status meetings or coordinating handoffs. You're the person a Fortune 500 CTO calls when they need to make a consequential decision about AI, and you're also the person building the methodology that makes Tribe's delivery consistently excellent across every account. You'll own 1–2 high‑stakes client engagements deeply — setting technical direction, leading cross‑functional teams, and holding the bar on what ships. In parallel, you'll translate what you learn in the field into reusable Tribe IP: architecture patterns, evaluation frameworks, deployment playbooks. That internal work is as central to the role as the client work. This is the role for a technical founder‑operator who wants to drive transformation at scale without taking all the startup risk.

Client Transformation

• Own technical delivery across a focused portfolio of 1–2 enterprise accounts — setting direction, managing risk, and holding the standard on outcomes.
• Act as the senior technical partner for C‑suite stakeholders: translate business problems into architectural decisions and make those decisions defensible.
• Guide clients through the hardest AI transformation decisions — when to automate, when to augment, how to govern, and how to scale what's working.
• Be the person clients call when something is critical or when they need a strategic perspective, not just a project update.

Practice Building

• Build reusable Tribe IP from your client work: architecture patterns, evaluation frameworks, deployment playbooks, and tooling that raises the floor for every FDE team.
• Develop Tribe's point of view in your domain — whether that's healthcare, financial services, supply chain, or another vertical you know deeply.
• Spot what's generalizable before anyone else does. The best FD‑CTOs don't just solve one client's problem — they solve it in a way that makes the next engagement faster and sharper.

Team Leadership

• Hire, develop, and retain FD Engineers, Architects, and PMs across your accounts.
• Create conditions for your teams to do their best work — clear scope, the right tools, and air cover to move fast.
• Run 1:1s and performance conversations that actually accelerate people's growth, not just check the box.

About You

• 12+ years of engineering experience with deep expertise in AI/ML and production systems.
• You've founded a company or built a 0‑to‑1 product as a technical lead. You know what it means to own an outcome, not just a workstream.
• Strong command of the modern AI stack: LLMs, agentic frameworks, RAG, vector infrastructure, cloud deployment, and evaluation pipelines.
• Background in client‑facing or consulting engineering where delivery accountability was real — not advisory.
• Executive presence: you can hold a room with a Fortune 500 CTO and earn trust in the first conversation.
• You think in systems and patterns. You see what's reusable across client problems before anyone else does.
• Comfortable managing ambiguity across high‑stakes accounts without losing track of what matters.

Why This, Why Now

The bottleneck in enterprise AI is no longer model capability — it's deployment. Getting from a working prototype to a system that materially changes a company's revenue or cost line is hard, and most firms can't do it consistently. Tribe can, and the FD‑CTO is the person who proves it at the highest level. The FDE function is the fastest‑growing role in tech — FDE job postings grew 729% year‑over‑year in 2026. OpenAI formalized its deployment function at scale. The category is being defined in real time, and Tribe is building the best forward‑deployed team in AI. What you build here — the methodology, the frameworks, the client relationships, the team — is a body of work you'll point to for the rest of your career.

Compensation Range: $300K – $450K