Principal Forward Deployed Engineer

Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc; Culver City (CA); On-site; USD 195,000 - 245,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive benefits

Annual incentive opportunities

Job summary

Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc in Culver City is seeking a Principal Forward Deployed Engineer to define and lead AI initiatives. This pivotal role will encompass building and shipping applications while collaborating with cross-functional teams to enhance AI-DLC adoption.

Candidates should have extensive experience in software engineering, cloud environments, and AI-assisted development. The anticipated base salary ranges from $195,000 to $245,000, depending on qualifications and experience.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Comfort generating and reviewing AI-generated code at speed.
• Experience satisfying enterprise security and governance needs.

Responsibilities

• Embed with IT and business teams to ship applications end-to-end.
• Lead AI-DLC adoption among partner teams.
• Harvest reusable patterns for future engagements.

Skills

Full-stack production engineering experience

AI-assisted development tooling

Stakeholder communication

Cloud (AWS and/or Azure)

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience

Tools

Claude Code

GitHub Copilot

Job description

About the Team

The Enterprise Intelligence Platform (EIP) builds and operates the AI platform that powers Sony Pictures Entertainment and drives AI Development Life Cycle (AI-DLC) adoption across the studio; it allows application teams to ship faster by using AI in the build process. EIP partners with IT and business groups to deliver production AI applications and compress the build cycle through AI-DLC practice.

About the Role

This Principal Forward Deployed Engineer is a newly created role that will help define its future from day one. As one of the first to step into this function, you will play a pivotal role in building the team, shaping the work the team delivers, and establishing new ways of partnering with the business to bring AI into production. You will be deeply embedded with teams across Sony Pictures and help pioneer the AI‑DLC that underpins our next generation of solutions. The role uses AI-DLC—AI‑assisted development tooling and practice—to compress the build cycle dramatically. Each engagement runs from scoping through prototype, production hardening, and handoff to the incumbent application team that owns the application long‑term. Reusable patterns from every engagement flow back into the EIP platform so successive projects compound. You will report directly to the SVP of Enterprise Intelligence Platform. This is a write, ship, and own role: production code, AI‑DLC practice, and platform feedback. It is not a consulting or solution‑architect role. Some of the applications you ship will include LLM inference at runtime (RAG, agents, prompt‑based interactions). Production‑LLM capability is part of the kit, but the dominant value of the role is shipping the application faster than traditional development cycles allow.

Responsibilities

• Embed with IT and business teams on priority SPE projects and ship full applications end to end (data layer, backend services, AI integration where the application needs it, user‑facing surface), using AI‑DLC to compress the development cycle dramatically. (50%)
• Lead AI‑DLC adoption in your partner teams: coach the team into team‑tier self‑sufficiency on AI‑assisted development so they continue using the practice after you roll off. (10%)
• When the application requires inference at runtime, build production LLM components on the EIP platform (RAG, agentic orchestration, prompt architecture, evaluation frameworks, observability, and guardrails). (10%)
• Work directly with non‑technical business stakeholders, from frontline operators and analysts through senior executives, to draw out what they actually need, shape a solution together, and translate it into a decomposed, shippable plan in real time. (10%)
• Harvest reusable patterns from every engagement back into the EIP platform backlog so what you build becomes platform capability and successive engagements compound. (20%)
• Hold the line with senior stakeholders when the request needs to change, and own what you ship through the handoff to the incumbent application team.

Qualifications

• Full‑stack production engineering experience across the whole application stack: object‑oriented development proficiency, backend services, data pipelines, user‑facing application surfaces (web UIs, internal tools, integrations), cloud (AWS and/or Azure), containers, and infrastructure‑as‑code. You ship every layer, not just the AI components.
• Hands‑on experience using AI‑assisted development tooling (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, or equivalent) to ship production code at meaningfully faster cycle times than traditional development.
• Comfort generating, reviewing, and iterating on AI‑generated code at velocity, with the judgment to know what to keep and what to throw away.
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Some production experience with LLM‑based systems (RAG, agents, prompt architecture, evaluation frameworks), applicable to the subset of engagements where the application includes runtime AI.
• A track record of satisfying enterprise security, governance, and data‑handling requirements when shipping software in regulated or rights‑sensitive domains.
• Strong stakeholder communication. You can sit with a non‑technical business partner, draw out what they actually need beyond the surface ask, propose a solution with them, and own translating it into a decomposed, shippable plan in real time. The same skill carries from frontline operators through senior executives.
• Comfort operating with high autonomy in ambiguous, fast‑moving engagements.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior Forward Deployed Engineer or embedded senior engineer experience.
• Deep experience with AI‑assisted development workflows in a production setting (not just experimentation).
• Experience coaching teams through methodology shifts (DevOps adoption, agile transformations, AI‑assisted development rollouts).
• Prior experience in media, entertainment, or other rights‑sensitive industries.
• Experience with the EIP foundation platforms (Amazon Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenAI APIs) or with Moveworks / Agentic Foundation.
• Cloud platform certifications (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and/or production‑AI / MLOps certifications.

Salary

The anticipated base salary for this position is $195,000‑$245,000. This role may also qualify for annual incentive and/or comprehensive benefits. The actual base salary offered will depend on a variety of factors, including without limitation, the qualifications of the individual applicant for the position, years of relevant experience, level of education attained, certifications or other professional licenses held, and if applicable, the location of the position.

Sony Pictures Entertainment is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, veteran status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other protected characteristics. SPE will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records in accordance with applicable law. Sony Pictures does not allow audio recording, video recording or use of AI note‑taking tools during interviews. Please be aware these tools may be enabled as a default and can be difficult to disable once the interview has started, so we recommend you check your device and disable these tools prior to the start of your interview. If recording or the use of the tools occurs during the interview and cannot be promptly turned off or disabled, the interviewer may end the interview. To request an accommodation for purposes of participating in the hiring process, you may contact us at [e-mail].