Principal Forward Deployed Engineer

Elios AI; Salt Lake City (UT); Hybrid; USD 170,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Elios AI in Salt Lake City is seeking a senior AI architect to set technical direction across enterprise AI engagements. You will operate at the executive level while remaining a builder, architecting systems that deliver scalable, cost-efficient, and trusted AI deployments.

You'll lead from the front—defining architecture, advising executives, and mentoring engineers across distributed teams—while ensuring teams stay current with the latest AI tooling and production practices.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of production software engineering experience.
• 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; fluency in agentic coding tools.

Responsibilities

• Own architecture across engagements: orchestrator-worker 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

Skills

10+ years production software

LLM-powered systems

Executive-level communication

Full-stack Python/TypeScript/React

Leading distributed teams

Tools

Python

TypeScript

React

LLM tooling

Backend frameworks

Job description

Location: Salt Lake City, UT | 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.