Forward Deployed Engineer (Mid/Senior)

Hippocratic AI; Menlo Park (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Hippocratic AI in Menlo Park, CA is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to own AI deployments that transform health systems by embedding with customers to build, launch, and operate production conversational AI agents across clinical workflows.

You will design RAG pipelines grounded in customer data, implement tool-calling and MCP architectures, and develop production Python code using LangChain/LangSmith to solve healthcare AI problems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in CS, software engineering, or related field.
• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience with Python.
• Hands-on experience with LLM frameworks (LangChain, LangSmith) and modern LLM patterns.
• Deep expertise in retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and tool calling.
• Experience building integrations with APIs, databases, or enterprise systems.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement RAG pipelines grounded in customer clinical data and data governance.
• Build tool-calling and MCP architectures enabling secure interactions with customer systems (EHRs, data warehouses).
• Develop production Python code using LangChain, LangSmith, and modern AI frameworks for advanced LLM techniques.
• Execute end-to-end deployments including infra setup, testing, monitoring, cutover, and go-live.
• Monitor and own production systems; instrument agents and troubleshoot incidents with customers.
• Partner with customers as technical expert, explaining architecture and building confidence in the solution.

Skills

Python

LLM frameworks

RAG pipelines

Tool calling

MCP integration

Production deployments

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field

Tools

LangChain

LangSmith

MCP

EHR integrations

Job description

About the Role

Role Mission

As HAI's Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be the technical owner of AI deployments that directly transform how health systems operate. You'll embed with customers to build, launch, and operate production conversational AI agents—architecting systems that handle real clinical workflows and impact thousands of patient interactions. This role exists because healthcare organizations are ready to deploy breakthrough AI at scale, and they need a world-class AI engineer who can build reliable, innovative systems in the field.

What You Will Accomplish

Own your first major outcome: By day 90, you will have completed end-to-end ownership of your first AI deployment: designed and implemented a RAG pipeline grounded in customer data, built tool-calling and MCP integrations connecting our agents to customer systems (EHRs, data warehouses, operational tools), executed a production go-live with zero surprises, and established monitoring that catches anomalies before customers do.

Drive lasting impact: At 12 months, you will have deployed multiple agents across your assigned health system, built reusable AI patterns and frameworks that accelerate future deployments, become the trusted technical partner that customers rely on to solve their hardest AI problems, and generate measurable evidence that our agents improve operational reliability and clinical outcomes—validating our technology in production healthcare environments.

The Team

You'll work alongside Deployment Strategists, engineers, and clinical experts—embedded with customers but tightly connected to our core AI team. You'll operate with high technical ownership and autonomy in the field, with direct access to our product, ML research, and engineering leadership. This is a culture of shipping real systems, owning outcomes, and solving problems before they become crises.

What You Will Do

• Design and implement RAG pipelines that ground conversational AI responses in customer clinical data, ensuring accuracy, safety, and relevance to healthcare workflows while managing retrieval latency and data governance

• Build tool-calling and Model Context Protocol (MCP) architectures that enable AI agents to interact securely with customer systems-EHRs (Epic, Cerner, Athena), data warehouses, and operational tools-handling errors gracefully and enforcing safety constraints

• Develop production Python code using LangChain, LangSmith, and modern AI frameworks to implement advanced LLM techniques (RAG, prompt engineering, LLM-as-judge, chain-of-thought reasoning) solving novel healthcare AI problems

• Execute end-to-end deployments including infrastructure setup, integration testing, production monitoring configuration, cutover planning, and go-live execution-ensuring deployments happen on schedule without surprises

• Monitor and own production systems by instrumenting deployed agents, responding quickly to incidents, troubleshooting issues collaboratively with customers, and implementing fixes that keep systems running reliably

• Partner with customers as technical expert, explaining AI system architecture, helping teams understand capabilities and limitations, and building confidence in the solution through proactive communication and problem-solving

Location Requirement

We believe the best ideas happen together. To support fast collaboration and a strong team culture, this role is expected to be in our Menlo Park, CA office five days a week, unless otherwise specified.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience with strong Python fundamentals and production software development experience

• Hands-on experience with LLM frameworks (LangChain, LangSmith, or similar) and deep understanding of modern LLM development patterns and best practices

• Deep expertise in LLM techniques including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), prompt engineering, tool calling, LLM-as-judge, and related advanced patterns

• Demonstrated experience building integrations with APIs, databases, or enterprise systems; comfort with async patterns, error handling, and reliability engineering

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP) or similar frameworks for tool integration and multi-system orchestration

• Healthcare IT experience, including EHR integrations (Epic, Cerner, Athena), FHIR, HL7, or healthcare data standards

• Production DevOps or infrastructure experience, including setting up monitoring, alerting, logging, and incident response systems

• Track record deploying AI systems or working with LLMs in production environments, managing latency, reliability, and operational complexity

• Experience in mission-critical or safety-sensitive systems where reliability and error handling are non-negotiable

• Startup or high-growth technology background, particularly in technical leadership or ownership roles

Our comprehensive compensation package is designed to reward your expertise and includes both a competitive base salary and valuable stock options. Individual offers are determined based on a variety of factors, including your professional experience, core competencies, and geographic location.

Why Join Hippocratic AI

Reinvent healthcare with AI that puts safety first. We’re building the world’s first healthcare-only, safety-focused LLM - a breakthrough platform designed to transform patient outcomes at a global scale. This is category creation.

Work with the people shaping the future. Hippocratic AI was co‑founded by CEO Munjal Shah and a team of physicians, hospital leaders, AI pioneers, and researchers from institutions like El Camino Health, Johns Hopkins, Washington University in St. Louis, Stanford, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and NVIDIA.

Backed by the world’s leading healthcare and AI investors. We recently raised a $126M Series C at a $3.5B valuation, led by Avenir Growth, bringing total funding to $404M with participation from CapitalG, General Catalyst, a16z, Kleiner Perkins, Premji Invest, UHS, Cincinnati Children’s, WellSpan Health, John Doerr, Rick Klausner, and others.

Build alongside the best in healthcare and AI. Join experts who’ve spent their careers improving care, advancing science, and building world‑changing technologies — ensuring our platform is powerful, trusted, and truly transformative.

Equal Opportunity

Hippocratic AI is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are committed to building a team that reflects the patients we serve. We actively encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds. If you require accommodations during the hiring process, please contact [e-mail].