Lead Forward Deployed Engineer

Prologis; Aurora (CO); On-site; USD 200,000 - 285,000; Full time

Job summary

Prologis seeks a Lead Forward Deployed Engineer to direct AI deployments across diverse workflows, partnering with business leaders and AI Product to translate needs into robust AI systems. You will guide architectural decisions, deliver production-ready solutions, and mentor a growing team of engineers.

You will engage with multiple platform and governance teams to ensure security, observability, and scalable delivery, while aligning with business outcomes and measurable value.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of hands-on software or AI deployment experience.
• Proven ability to lead complex deployments from discovery to production release.
• Experience partnering with business leaders to redesign processes using AI.

Responsibilities

• Lead a portfolio of AI deployments with defined outcomes, sponsorship, and ownership.
• Partner with AI Product and business leaders to identify opportunities and define value cases.
• Architect, build, test, and support production-grade AI applications and integration work.
• Coordinate with multiple teams to resolve dependencies and ensure adoption and transfer of ownership.
• Mentor Senior FDEs and provide concise executive reporting on progress and risks.

Skills

Python

APIs

Cloud

LLM apps

Architectural design

Production delivery

Tools

AWS

Dataiku

SQL

Containers

CI/CD

Job description

At Prologis, we don’t just lead the industry—we define it with a 1.3 billion square foot portfolio and an annual throughput of approximately $3.2 trillion. We create the intelligent infrastructure that powers global commerce, seamlessly connecting the digital and physical worlds. From agile supply chains to energy solutions, our ecosystems help your business move faster, operate smarter and grow sustainably. With unmatched scale, innovation and expertise, Prologis is a category of one—not just shaping the future of logistics but building what comes next.Job Title:Lead Forward Deployed EngineerCompany:PrologisA day in the lifeThe Lead FDE partners with business teams to reimagine how work gets done with AI and leads the technical delivery of Prologis’ most complex business-embedded AI deployments while remaining hands-on in architecture, code, evaluation, and production implementation.As the first FDE hire, this role will help establish the FDE capability at Prologis and shape how AI is translated into new ways of working and measurable business results.The Lead FDE will be assigned to a primary Prologis business domain, generally for 9 to 12 months and potentially longer, to build deep operating context while leading several discrete deployments without creating permanent embedded support.This senior individual-contributor role sets technical direction, guides Senior FDEs and partner engineers, resolves cross-functional blockers, and remains accountable through business acceptance, production stabilization, and ownership transfer.Key responsibilities include:Lead a portfolio of AI deployments within an anchor business domain, spanning multiple workflows, business units, or enterprise systems, with defined outcomes, sponsorship, architecture, milestones, production ownership, and handoff plans.Partner with business leaders, frontline users, and AI Product to identify high-value opportunities, understand current workflows, redesign processes using AI, software, and human judgment, and define value cases, success measures, operating constraints, and acceptance criteria.Architect, build, test, troubleshoot, and support production-grade AI applications, agents, retrieval systems, integrations, and workflow solutions through release and stabilization.Set technical direction across FDE deployments, guide Senior FDEs, central AI engineers, and partner teams, and resolve tradeoffs among business value, engineering quality, security, speed, maintainability, and cost.Design representative test sets, acceptance thresholds, regression testing, observability, security, privacy, auditability, and human controls, and facilitate business validation against agreed acceptance criteria.Coordinate with AI Product, Applied AI Engineering, Platform, Data and Knowledge, Security and Governance, Process and Agent Orchestration, Enablement, Architecture, and AI Operations to resolve dependencies, support adoption, and establish durable production ownership.Identify reusable components, evaluation assets, reference architectures, standards, and delivery playbooks; mentor Senior FDEs and partner engineers; and provide concise executive reporting on value, progress, risks, tradeoffs, and decisions.Building blocks for successRequired:Eight or more years of hands-on software engineering, AI engineering, technical delivery, enterprise-solution experience, or equivalent practical experience.Demonstrated success leading multiple complex software or AI deployments from discovery through business acceptance, production release, stabilization, and ownership transfer.Proven experience partnering with business leaders and frontline teams to redesign an end-to-end business process using AI while personally contributing to engineering delivery and demonstrating sustained production use and measurable business improvement.Hands-on programming and architecture capability across Python, APIs, data platforms, cloud, and modern application technologies.Practical experience building and operating LLM applications, agentic systems, retrieval solutions, tool integrations, evaluations, guardrails, and production observability.Experience applying enterprise architecture, data integration, identity, security, data protection, and software operating-model requirements to production solutions.Demonstrated ability to lead technical delivery without formal organizational authority and translate senior business objectives into executable technical work.Product judgment to distinguish reusable patterns from one-off customization and make disciplined build, buy, or stop decisions.Demonstrated ability to create reusable engineering components, evaluation assets, standards, and playbooks.Written and verbal communication skills for executive communication and technical design documentation.Ability to acquire deep domain context quickly and use it to make enterprise delivery tradeoffs.Preferred:Experience extending successful AI workflow transformations across business units or geographies within a large global enterprise.Deep knowledge of one or more Prologis business domains or adjacent industries.Experience leading several parallel deployments or a portfolio of related AI use cases.Experience building shared AI components, governed retrieval, knowledge architectures, reference architectures, or enterprise developer tooling.Experience with AWS, Dataiku, SQL, automated testing, containers, CI/CD, and cloud or hybrid enterprise deployment patterns.Demonstrates willingness and capability to leverage emerging technology, automation, and AI tools to improve efficiency, quality, and speed. Exercises sound judgment, creative thinking, and accountability for outcomes.Hiring Salary Range of:$200,000 - $285,000. Salary and whole compensation package (bonus target) to be determined by the candidate’s location, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.#LI-KR1People FirstEach of us working at Prologis plays an essential role in the enduring success of our company. We value people who are decisive, courageous and adaptable. While we are one company, locations and departments operate with autonomy and accountability. Individuals take the initiative here.When you join Prologis, you work shoulder to shoulder with some of the top talent in the industry to do the best work of your career. Every employee belongs. Every employee contributes. Employees advance their careers here.As a successful global enterprise, Prologis has never lost sight of what matters most, our strong belief that our people are the most important part of our business. And because of that, we provide a generous total rewards package and take a lot of time to focus on quality management and leadership development. People come first here.All full-time roles in the US come with a robust benefits package which includes healthcare, dental, and vision insurance for employees and eligible dependents. Prologis also offers several other wellness, financial, and work/lifestyle-specific benefits. Our 401(k) retirement plan has a company match of 50% up to 12% of eligible compensation. We also offer generous PTO with a starting accrual of 22 days a year in addition to paid holidays and volunteer time.All job offers are contingent upon successful completion of background verification. Prologis is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religions, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.Employment Type:Full timeLocation:Denver, ColoradoAdditional Locations:Atlanta, Georgia, Cerritos, California, Chicago, Illinois, Dallas, Texas, Nashville, Tennessee, New York, New York, Phoenix, Arizona, San Francisco, California, Seattle, Washington