Job at a glance
Our client, is seeking a high-performing Principal Forward Deployed Engineer to serve as the foundational technical leader and right-hand partner to the Vice President of Artificial Intelligence. In this high-impact player-coach leadership role, you will bridge complex system architecture, multi-agent AI engineering, and strategic business delivery. You will act as the technical anchor for the Forward Deployed Engineering organization—owning high-priority AI deployments end-to-end while building, mentoring, and scaling a world-class team of Forward Deployed Engineers.
Balancing hands-on technical architecture (~30%–40%+) with team leadership, you will ship production-grade, agentic AI solutions directly into production while establishing enterprise-wide technical standards, playbooks, and architectures for all future AI engagements. Position Type: Full-Time, Permanent Location: Toronto, ON Work Arrangement: Hybrid (3 days per week on-site at the corporate facility / 2 days remote) Advantages Foundational AI Leadership Scope: Serve as the founding technical lead for an expanding Forward Deployed Engineering practice, working directly alongside the VP of Artificial Intelligence.
Cutting-Edge Agentic Sandbox: Architect and deploy state-of-the-art multi-agent AI systems, virtual agents, and automated workflow solutions for high-stakes enterprise use cases. Player-Coach Impact: Maintain hands-on involvement in code architecture and deployment while scaling a high-performing engineering practice over the next 12–18 months. Full-Time Permanent Stability: Secure a high-visibility, permanent executive engineering role within a global market leader expanding its local AI footprint.
Responsibilities Hands-On Agentic Architecture & Building: Design, build, ship, and iterate on production-grade multi-agent AI systems, virtual agents, and workflow automations (e.g., virtual sales agents, cash forecast automation, and API-integrated customer service agents). Technical Practice & Team Leadership: Act as the direct manager and technical mentor for the growing Forward Deployed Engineering team; recruit, assess, and scale the practice to a 7–10 person engineering team over 12–18 months.
End-to-End MVP Delivery: Own AI use cases end-to-end—from initial scoping and rapid prototyping to production MVP delivery—ensuring rapid user adoption and clear business value. Platform & Stack Standardization: Collaborate with core AI engineering groups to establish enterprise technical standards, reusable agentic frameworks, tooling pipelines, and deployment practices. Governance & Responsible AI: Ensure all engineered solutions strictly adhere to enterprise Responsible AI frameworks, security protocols, and data governance standards.
Qualifications Agentic Frameworks Mastery: Direct, hands-on experience building with modern agentic frameworks (such as LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI, or similar). Model Context Protocol & APIs: Proven experience building Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, complex API integrations, and custom endpoints. GPU & Infrastructure Optimization: Experience with GPU cluster provisioning, model training/fine-tuning pipelines, and throughput optimization.
AI-Native Tooling Literacy: Demonstrated fluency using AI-native development tools (e.g., Cursor, Lovable, or similar LLM-driven coding platforms). Forward Deployed / Solutions Experience: Track record in product-led software, AI, or advanced analytics environments (e.g., high-growth AI startups or enterprise scale-ups) serving as the bridge between technical execution and business needs. Education: Strong foundation with a Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
Preferred Assets & Nice-to-Haves Proven people management experience recruiting, mentoring, and leveling up engineering talent. Background working within product-led software or high-growth AI startups. Summary If you are a tech-savvy Principal Forward Deployed Engi