Forward Deployed Engineer, Post-Training

Together; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 270,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Startup equity

Health insurance

Remote work flexibility

Job summary

Together AI, the AI Native Cloud, seeks a Forward Deployed Engineer focused on post-training to partner with strategic customers. You will guide data strategy, experiment design, and model evaluation, shaping post-training outcomes and compute sizing for RL and fine-tuning.

Ideal candidates have 5+ years in ML engineering with hands-on post-training LLM experience, strong Python skills, and a proven ability to manage complex, customer-facing projects in a cross-functional environment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in ML engineering or related field with post-training LLM experience.
• Expert post-training work: fine-tuning and RL for LLMs (SFT, LoRA, DPO, PPO/GRPO).
• Proven ability to design experiments and rigorous evaluations.
• Data-driven approach to building and iterating training datasets.
• Strong Python and production-grade coding skills.
• Excellent cross-functional communication and project management.

Responsibilities

• Define data strategy for model post-training and diagnose data quality issues.
• Suggest post-training approaches for each use case.
• Design controlled experiments and tracking to diagnose instabilities.
• Build evaluation frameworks with benchmarks and held-out tests.
• Guide base model selection for post-training objectives.
• Size RL and fine-tuning workloads; collaborate on capacity forecasts.
• Serve as primary post-training technical contact for strategic accounts.
• Contribute code, recipes, and reference implementations; promote new features.

Skills

Data strategy

Algorithm selection

Experiment design

Evaluation framework

Model selection

RL workload sizing

Strategic alignment

Product feedback loop

Python

Production experience

Project management

Job description

About the role

As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) focused on Post-Training, you will be a hands-on technical partner to our most strategic customers: AI teams using fine-tuning and reinforcement learning to build differentiated models on open-source foundations. FDE does not replace our Solutions Architects. You will work alongside them as the deep-domain specialist in post-training, guiding customers through data strategy, algorithm selection, experiment design, and evaluation, and sizing the compute behind it. You’ll make sure we can deliver on our post-training POCs, drive adoption of our fine-tuning and RL platform, and turn customer goals into measurable gains in model quality. Your work directly affects customer success, company growth, and the hardening of our core platform.

Responsibilities

• Data Strategy: Help customers define and execute their data strategy for model post-training, diagnose data quality issues that limit model performance outcomes, and provide recommendations for data generation for post-training scale
• Algorithm Selection: Recommend the right post-training approach for each use case
• Experiment Design & Hyperparameter Tuning: Design well-controlled experiments and tracking methods; diagnose training instabilities, reward hacking, and regressions.
• Evaluation: Build evaluation frameworks with customers, including task-specific benchmarks, LLM-as-judge pipelines, and held-out test sets. Make sure gains are reproducibly aligned with production success metrics.
• Model Selection: Guide base model selection methodology ahead of post-training efforts and baseline quality evaluations to guide post-training objectives. Interest in self-directed research of newly released open source models, particularly as they relate to post-training.
• RL Workload Sizing: Scope and size RL and fine-tuning workloads, partner with sales and capacity teams to shape deals and capacity forecasts.
• Strategic Customer Alignment: Serve as the primary post-training technical point of contact for aligned strategic accounts. Lead technical execution from scoping to production and make sure we hit critical milestones.
• Product & Research Feedback Loop: Shape our fine-tuning and RL product roadmap with insights from the field. Contribute code, recipes, and reference implementations where needed, and drive early adoption of new features and research with strategic logos.

Requirements

• Experience: 5+ years in a technical role in ML engineering, Applied AI, Forward Deployed Engineering, or Solutions Architect, with recent hands-on experience post-training LLMs.
• Post-Training Depth: Expert-level, hands-on experience with fine-tuning and/or RL for LLMs, including SFT, LoRA, DPO, and RL (GRPO, PPO, etc)..
• Experimental Rigor: Strong track record designing experiments, running ablations, and building evaluations that separate real improvement from noise.
• Data Intuition: Proven ability to build and iterate on training datasets
• Model Landscape Awareness: Broad knowledge of state-of-the-art open-source models and strong judgment on which base model to post-train for a given customer requirements
• Coding Proficiency: Strong Python skills; comfortable working in production environments.
• Experience leading complex, customer-facing technical projects, with exceptional project management and communication skills. Able to work in a highly X-functional environment.

About Together AI

Together AI, the AI Native Cloud, is purpose-built for AI engineers. AI application developers get high-performance inference that scales reliably, fine-tuning and reinforcement learning for creating frontier-level specialized models, and pre-training at massive scale for fully custom intelligence, all around a marketplace of leading open models that teams can run, adapt, and own. Trusted by Cursor, Decagon, ElevenLabs, Salesforce, and Zoom, Together serves 400+ trillion tokens a month.

Compensation

We offer competitive compensation, startup equity, health insurance, and other benefits, as well as flexibility in terms of remote work. The US base salary range for this full-time position is: $270,000 - $300,000 OTE + equity + benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by location, level and role. Individual compensation will be determined by experience, skills, and job-related knowledge.

Together AI is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is proud to offer equal employment opportunity to everyone regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, veteran status, and more.