Forward Deployed Engineer – AI

International Business Machines Corporation; Boston (MA); Remote; USD 144,000 - 268,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare benefits

401(k) and pension plan

Paid time off

Training and certifications

Diversity & inclusion

Job summary

IBM Consulting is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer – AI to work with clients across industries, transforming complex challenges into production-ready AI solutions. You'll prototype, deploy, and scale GenAI applications and demonstrate measurable business value.

This role emphasizes collaboration, governance, and engineering across data, AI, and cloud platforms in a client-facing setting.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a technical field required.
• Master's degree preferred; PhD considered.
• Experience with LLM tuning, AI eval and governance.
• Industry experience in high tech, electronics or manufacturing.
• Background in forward deployed engineering or client-facing consulting.

Responsibilities

• Solve client challenges and define AI use cases with success metrics.
• Build end-to-end GenAI, RAG and agentic AI apps on cloud platforms.
• Engineer LLM-powered agents, prompts, tooling and guardrails.
• Data prep and integration with enterprise systems and APIs.
• Apply MLOps/LLMOps, testing, monitoring and responsible AI practices.
• Present insights and drive client adoption for reusable assets.

Skills

GenAI

LLMOps

Data engineering

Frontend development

Cloud AI certs

Open-source AI contributions

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree

PhD

Tools

LangGraph

CrewAI

Vertex AI

Azure AI Foundry

Amazon Bedrock

Job description

A career in IBM Consulting is built on long-term client relationships and close collaboration worldwide. You’ll work with leading companies across industries, helping them shape their hybrid cloud and AI journeys. With support from our strategic partners, robust IBM technology, and Red Hat, you’ll have the tools to drive meaningful change and accelerate client impact. At IBM Consulting, curiosity fuels success. You’ll be encouraged to challenge the norm, explore new ideas, and create innovative solutions that deliver real results. Our culture of growth and empathy focuses on your long-term career development while valuing your unique skills and experiences.

Your role and responsibilities

As a Forward Deployed Engineer – AI, you will work directly with clients to transform complex business challenges into production-ready AI solutions. Combining software engineering, data science, GenAI, agentic AI, and advanced analytics, you will rapidly prototype, deploy, and scale solutions that deliver measurable business value.

Required education

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred education

Master's Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

• Solve Client Challenges:Partner with business and technical teams to identify opportunities, define AI use cases, and establish success metrics.
• Build and Deploy AI Solutions:Develop end-to-end GenAI, RAG, and agentic AI applications using tools such as LangGraph, CrewAI, and hyperscaler cloud AI platforms (e.g., AWS, Google, Azure).
• Engineer Agentic and GenAI Systems:Design and implement LLM-powered agents, tool use and orchestration, prompt and context engineering, and evaluation frameworks using platforms such as LangGraph, CrewAI, Vertex AI, Azure AI Foundry, or Amazon Bedrock. Apply guardrails, observability, and testing to ensure accuracy, safety, and reliability.
• Data Engineering and Integrations:Prepare structured and unstructured data and integrate AI solutions with enterprise systems, APIs, and data platforms.
• Scale and Operationalize AI:Apply MLOps/LLMOps, testing, monitoring, and responsible AI practices to ensure solutions are reliable, secure, and production-ready.
• Drive Business Impact:Present insights, demonstrate outcomes, support client adoption, and turn successful solutions into reusable assets for future engagements.

This job can be performed from anywhere in the US.

Work arrangement

Hybrid

Area of work

Data & Analytics

Employment type

Regular

Contract type

Regular

Preferred technical and professional experience

• Master’s or PhD in a technical or quantitative field.
• Experience with LLM fine-tuning, AI evaluation and governance,
• Industry experience in high tech, electronics or manufacturing.
• Background in forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, or client-facing consulting.
• Front-end development experience (e.g., React or Streamlit), cloud/AI certifications, or open-source AI contributions.

ABOUT BUSINESS UNIT

IBM Consulting is IBM’s consulting and global professional services business, with market leading capabilities in business and technology transformation. With deep expertise in many industries, we offer strategy, experience, technology, and operations services to many of the most innovative and valuable companies in the world. Our people are focused on accelerating our clients’ businesses through the power of collaboration. We believe in the power of technology responsibly used to help people, partners and the planet.

YOUR LIFE @ IBM

In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.

Being an IBMer means you’ll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you’ll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

Are you ready to be an IBMer?

ABOUT IBM

IBM’s greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.

Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we’re also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 500 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.

At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it’s time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.

IBM is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS

IBM offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits program. Eligible employees may have access to:

- Healthcare benefits including medical & prescription drug coverage, dental, vision, and mental health & well being

- Financial programs such as 401(k), cash balance pension plan, the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan, financial counseling, life insurance, short & long- term disability coverage, and opportunities for performance based salary incentive programs

- Generous paid time off including 12 holidays, minimum 56 hours sick time, 120 hours vacation, 12 weeks parental bonding leave in accordance with IBM Policy, and other Paid Care Leave programs. IBM also offers paid family leave benefits to eligible employees where required by applicable law

- Training and educational resources on our personalized, AI-driven learning platform where IBMers can grow skills and obtain industry-recognized certifications to achieve their career goals

- Diverse and inclusive employee resource groups, giving & volunteer opportunities, and discounts on retail products, services & experiences

We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.

IBM will not be providing visa sponsorship for this position now or in the future. Therefore, in order to be considered for this position, you must have the ability to work without a need for current or future visa sponsorship.

The compensation range and benefits for this position are based on a full-time schedule for a full calendar year. The salary will vary depending on your job-related skills, experience and location. Pay increment and frequency of pay will be in accordance with employment classification and applicable laws. For part time roles, your compensation and benefits will be adjusted to reflect your hours. Benefits may be pro-rated for those who start working during the calendar year.

Projected Minimum Salary per year

144,000.00

Projected Maximum Salary per year

268,000.00

Position type

Professional

Up to 60% or 3 days a week (home on weekends - based on project requirements)

Company

(0147) International Business Machines Corporation

Shift

General (daytime)