Middle/Senior Forward Deployed Engineer (Python, AI)

Job description

### Why Join Exadel We’re an AI-first global tech company with 25+ years of engineering leadership, 2,000+ team members, and 500+ active projects powering Fortune 500 clients, including HBO, Microsoft, Google, and Starbucks. From AI platforms to digital transformation, we partner with enterprise leaders to build what’s next. What powers it all? Our people are ambitious, collaborative, and constantly evolving. ### What You’ll Do - Embed within client environments, working onsite with the people performing the work and the executives sponsoring it. - Lead discovery sessions to understand the client’s business, systems, data, operating model, and underlying challenges. - Translate ambiguous business problems into prioritized and quantified opportunity maps, supported by clear baselines and accountable client owners. - Identify which opportunities are genuinely worth pursuing and advise against initiatives that do not provide sufficient business value. - Build trust in the client’s data and deliver working, data-grounded prototypes within the first weeks of an engagement. - Design, develop, debug, and deploy production-grade AI agents, integrations, data pipelines, and applications within client systems. - Remain hands-on in the code whenever technical progress or delivery outcomes depend on it. - Define evaluation frameworks, quality thresholds, regression gates, and monitoring strategies for AI and agentic systems. - Monitor model and data drift and design effective human-in-the-loop controls for high-impact workflows. - Scope, sequence, and coordinate delivery across engineers, architects, and specialist contributors. - Make explicit trade-offs between scope, delivery speed, quality, and business value. - Orchestrate Exadel Colleague to accelerate delivery and scale successful implementation patterns. - Convert successful deployments into reusable reference architectures, agent templates, integration blueprints, evaluation frameworks, and delivery playbooks. - Produce clear technical documentation, operational runbooks, and knowledge-transfer materials. - Train client teams to independently operate, maintain, and extend delivered solutions. - For Senior FDEs, independently lead executive discovery, direct pod execution, and take full accountability for engagement outcomes. - For Senior FDEs, mentor other Forward Deployed Engineers and ensure reusable delivery patterns are incorporated into Exadel Colleague. ### What You Bring - Mid-level hands-on technical experience, including client-facing capacity. - For the Senior Forward Deployed Engineer level, senior-level experience, including technical delivery leadership across multidisciplinary teams or pods. - A demonstrated record of delivering production software used by real users and business teams. - Practical experience designing, deploying, and debugging LLM-backed or agentic systems in production. - Advanced proficiency in Python, along with experience using TypeScript or JavaScript and SQL. - Strong knowledge of prompt and context engineering, agent architecture, tool and function calling, and retrieval-augmented generation. - Experience with Model Context Protocol servers, sub-agents, skills, and agent development frameworks such as the OpenAI Agents SDK or Claude SDKs. - Experience designing evaluation harnesses, quality thresholds, regression gates, drift monitoring, and observability for non-deterministic systems. - Understanding of human-in-the-loop control design and where human review should remain within automated workflows. - Experience with data modeling, domain ontologies, ETL or ELT pipelines, relational databases, vector stores, and embedding pipelines. - Experience building and deploying solutions on AWS, Azure, or GCP. - Familiarity with Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, serverless architectures, and enterprise deployment patterns. - Experience integrating with REST or GraphQL APIs, webhooks, event-streaming platforms, identity systems, and SSO. - High agency and sound judgment when working through ambiguity, incomplete information, and evolving client requirements. - Demonstrated ability to become credible and productive quickly within unfamiliar industries and business domains. - A habit of clarifying the problem, identifying constraints, and explicitly stating assumptions before developing a solution. - The ability to communicate effectively with both executive and technical audiences. - Strong technical writing skills, with the ability to explain complex concepts clearly and precisely. - Commercial judgment and the ability to connect technical decisions to measurable business value. - Strong analytical and mathematical rigor when working with incomplete, inconsistent, or unstructured data. - Fluent English communication skills. - Willingness to travel approximately 25–50% and work onsite in client environments. ### Nice to have - A university degree is preferred but not required. Demonstrated evidence of successfully delivered work will be valued ahead of formal qualifications. - Java, C#, or C++ within legacy enterprise environments. - Node.js, React, or Next.js for client-facing applications. - Fine-tuning fundamentals and multi-agent orchestration. - TDD or BDD practices. - Large-scale data processing platforms such as Spark, Databricks, or Snowflake. - PostgreSQL, MySQL, or comparable relational databases. - On-premises, sovereign, or restricted-cloud deployment models. - Enterprise systems such as Jira, Azure DevOps, ServiceNow, Salesforce, or SAP. - GitHub or GitLab-based delivery workflows. ### English level Fluent ### Legal & Hiring Information - Compensation Transparency: The expected compensation range for this role is $65-130/hr CAD, with eligibility for commission, bonus, or other incentive compensation where applicable. Actual compensation will be determined based on experience, skills, qualifications, geographic location within Canada, and business needs. - Position Status: This posting is for a newly created position - Location Eligibility: This role is open to candidates residing in Canadian provinces, excluding Quebec. - Experience Requirements: We welcome applicants with relevant experience regardless of where it was obtained. Canadian work experience is not required. - Use of Artificial Intelligence in Hiring: We may use automated tools or artificial intelligence systems to support the screening, assessment, or selection of applicants as part of our hiring process. - Benefits Summary: Canadian employees are eligible to participate in Exadel’s benefits programs, which may include extended health, dental and vision coverage; life and disability insurance; retirement savings programs; paid time off; paid holidays; and other wellness or voluntary benefit programs, subject to plan terms and eligibility requirements. - Equal Employment Opportunity: Exadel is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, family status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable provincial human rights legislation. - Accessibility and Accommodation: We are committed to providing accommodations throughout the recruitment process in accordance with applicable accessibility and human rights legislation. If you require accommodation at any stage of the hiring process, please contact us. ### Your Benefits at Exadel Exadel benefits vary by location and contract type. Your recruiter will fill you in on the details. - International projects - In-office, hybrid, or remote flexibility - Medical healthcare - Recognition program - Ongoing learning & reimbursement - Well-being program - Team events & local benefits - Sports compensation - Referral bonuses - Top-tier equipment provision ### Exadel Culture We lead with trust, respect, and purpose. We believe in open dialogue, creative freedom, and mentorship that helps you grow, lead, and make a real difference. Ours is a culture where ideas are challenged, voices are heard, and your impact matters.