Forward Deployed Software Engineer

Remote role

Compensation: $60 - $75 per hour

ABOUT THE ROLE

Our client is seeking a Forward Deployed Software Engineer to accelerate AI transformation within their engineering teams. This is a hands-on role, embedding directly with product development teams to diagnose friction in current software development practices and deliver AI-powered tooling and process improvements that measurably enhance productivity and quality. You will split your time between engineering, process analysis, and change management—acting as both builder and internal consultant. The role involves designing, prototyping, and deploying custom AI solutions, collaborating with engineering leads to reimagine workflows, and building reusable internal tools and frameworks. You will establish metrics to measure impact, act as a technical evangelist through workshops and training, and produce clear documentation and playbooks for broader adoption. Staying current on the fast-moving AI tooling landscape and pressure-testing new tools against real team workflows is essential. The ideal candidate has extensive hands-on software development experience, expertise in integrating AI/LLM tools into engineering workflows, strong systems thinking, and proven ability to drive change across teams through influence and communication.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Embed with individual engineering teams for weeks-to-months-long engagements, observing and mapping their software development lifecycle (SDLC/PDLC) to identify bottlenecks, manual toil, and inconsistent practices
• Design, prototype, and ship AI tooling (agentic workflows, coding assistants, custom internal agents, CI/CD integrations) that directly addresses the friction points you identify
• Partner with engineering leads to redesign processes—code review, testing, deployment, incident response, planning—around AI-in-the-loop workflows rather than bolting AI onto legacy process
• Build reusable internal tools, skills, and frameworks so improvements generalize beyond a single team's engagement
• Establish metrics to measure adoption and impact (cycle time, defect rates, developer satisfaction) before and after each engagement
• Act as a technical evangelist and trainer, running workshops and pairing sessions to build AI fluency across engineering
• Stay current on the fast-moving AI tooling landscape (coding agents, IDE integrations, MCP-based tooling, orchestration frameworks) and pressure-test new tools against real team workflows before recommending broader rollout
• Produce clear internal documentation and playbooks so successful patterns can be adopted self-serve by teams you haven't directly engaged with

WHAT YOU BRING

• 8+ years of professional software development experience, including meaningful time in architecture or technical leadership roles
• Demonstrated ability to design and build production-grade software across the full stack—this is a hands-on engineering role, not a pure advisory one
• Direct experience integrating AI/LLM tooling into real engineering workflows (not just personal experimentation)—coding agents, agentic pipelines, RAG systems, or similar
• Strong systems thinking: ability to analyze a team's SDLC end-to-end and identify leverage points for improvement
• Experience driving process or tooling change across engineering teams through influence, credibility, and communication skill
• Comfort with ambiguity and ability to shift between deep technical work and stakeholder-facing consulting
• Track record of measuring and communicating the impact of engineering changes
• Experience with enterprise-scale developer tooling or platform engineering (nice to have)
• Prior consulting, forward-deployed engineering, or professional services background (nice to have)
• Familiarity with engineering metrics frameworks (e.g., DORA) and how to apply them effectively (nice to have)
• Experience building internal skills/tooling for CLI or IDE-based AI agents (nice to have)

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