Principal Forward Deployed Engineer

Elios AI; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Elios AI in Washington, DC seeks a senior AI architecture leader who will set technical direction across enterprise engagements, balancing architectural rigor with hands-on building and clear executive communication.

You will translate business strategy into scalable AI systems, mentor senior engineers, and stay at the edge of production AI tooling and LLM platforms. Hybrid setup with top-tier impact.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of production software engineering experience, including 3+ years in LLM-powered systems.
• Experience shipping production AI products with measurable scale and availability.
• Consulting or enterprise delivery background with executive-level communication.

Responsibilities

• Own architecture across engagements: orchestrator-worker patterns, MCP integrations, hybrid RAG systems, and scalable LLM platforms.
• Advise executive stakeholders on AI strategy and translate it into systems that ship.

Skills

LLM-powered systems

Production software engineering

Executive communication

Python

TypeScript

React

Agentic coding tools

Leadership across distributed teams

Job description

Location: Washington, DC | 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.