Principal Forward Deployed Engineer

Elios AI; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation and benefits

Job summary

Elios AI in Chicago seeks a leader to set technical direction across enterprise AI engagements: architect clients' systems for scale, reliability, and cost efficiency, while remaining a builder and hands-on contributor.

You'll navigate production environments with high stakes, advise executives on AI strategy, mentor engineers, and define standards for evals, reliability, and responsible AI use.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of production software engineering with 3+ years on LLM-powered systems.
• Experience architecting and shipping production AI products with measurable scale.
• Consulting or enterprise delivery background with executive-level communication.
• Full-stack depth across Python, TypeScript, React, and modern backend frameworks.
• Hands-on leadership across distributed teams while staying actively involved.

Responsibilities

• Own architecture across engagements: orchestrator-worker patterns, MCP integrations, hybrid RAG systems, and LLM platforms for scale.
• Advise executive stakeholders on AI strategy and translate it into shippable systems.
• Set technical bar across teams: evals, reliability, cost, and responsible AI tool use.
• Unblock the hardest problems hands-on; act as player-coach at the highest technical level.
• Mentor senior and lead engineers across distributed teams.
• Stay current with what shipped this month and avoid dated course material.

Skills

LLM-powered systems

Executive-level communication

Distributed leadership

Python

TypeScript

React

Systems architecture

Agentic coding tools

Tools

Agentic coding tools

Job description

Location: Chicago, IL | Type: Full Time | Setup: Hybrid | Experience: 10+ years

About the Role

You'll set technical direction across enterprise AI engagements: the architect clients bring in when the system has to work, the stakes are high, and the answer isn't in a playbook. You operate at the executive level without losing precision, and you remain a builder.

Our client deploys AI systems into production environments where availability, cost, and trust are non-negotiable. The bar here is architect, builder, communicator: a decade-plus of production engineering, deep LLM systems experience, and the judgment to direct AI tooling rather than hide behind it.

If you've architected multi-agent platforms, shipped AI products handling thousands of daily queries, and can defend every decision to a CTO, this is your level.

What You'll Do

• Own architecture across engagements: orchestrator-worker agent patterns, MCP integrations, hybrid RAG systems, and LLM platforms built for scale
• Advise executive stakeholders on AI strategy and translate it into systems that ship
• Set the technical bar across teams, including standards for evals, reliability, cost, and responsible AI tool use
• Unblock the hardest problems hands-on; this is a player-coach role at the highest technical level
• Mentor senior and lead engineers across distributed teams
• Stay genuinely current: what shipped this month, not what was in a course six months ago

Qualifications

• 10+ years of production software engineering, with 3+ years focused on LLM-powered systems
• Experience architecting and shipping production AI products with measurable scale and availability
• Consulting or enterprise delivery background with executive-level communication
• Full-stack depth across Python, TypeScript, React, and modern backend frameworks, plus current fluency in agentic coding tools
• History of leading engineers across distributed environments while staying hands-on

Why Join Us

Top-of-market scope: the engagements with the highest stakes, the most autonomy, and clients who listen. Competitive compensation and benefits.