AI Engineer – Forward Deployed Engineering (AI FDE)
Databricks is hiring an AI Engineer – Forward Deployed Engineering (AI FDE) for a remote role open to applicants in United States. It pays $182k-$250k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Databricks.
Level's read on this job
- Builds AI ●●●● is how Level rates this AI engineer role: the job is building AI systems.
- The listed pay starts close to the typical AI engineer posting on Level.
- The posting lists this role as remote.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include LangChain, DSPy and Hugging Face.
- Level lists 921 other open roles at Databricks.
AI in this role
Develop cutting-edge GenAI solutions, RAG, and multi-agent systems as a forward-deployed AI engineer helping customers productionize AI applications.
AI Engineer – Forward Deployed Engineering (AI FDE) (ALL LEVELS)
CSQ327R177
Mission
The AI Forward Deployed Engineering (AI FDE) team is a highly specialized customer-facing AI team at Databricks. We deliver professional services engagements to help our customers build and productionize first-of-its-kind AI applications. We work cross-functionally to shape long-term strategic priorities and initiatives alongside engineering, product, and developer relations, as well as support internal subject matter expert (SME) teams. We view our team as an ensemble: we look for individuals with strong, unique specializations to improve the overall strength of the team. This team is the right fit for you if you love working with customers, teammates, and fueling your curiosity for the latest trends in GenAI, LLMOps, and ML more broadly. Open to remote locations.
This role is intended for experienced engineers with demonstrated industry experience designing, building, and deploying production GenAI and LLM applications at scale. It is not intended for internship, new graduate, or entry-level applicants.
The impact you will have:
- Develop cutting-edge GenAI solutions, incorporating the latest techniques from Databricks AI research to solve customer problems
- Own production rollouts of consumer and internally facing GenAI applications
- Serve as a trusted technical advisor to customers across a variety of domains
- Present at conferences such as Data + AI Summit, recognized as a thought leader internally and externally
- Collaborate cross-functionally with the product and engineering teams to influence priorities and shape the product roadmap
What we look for:
- Experience building GenAI applications, including RAG, multi-agent systems, Text2SQL, fine-tuning, etc., with tools such as HuggingFace, LangChain, and DSPy
- Expertise in deploying production-grade GenAI applications, including evaluation and optimizations
- Extensive years of hands-on industry data science experience, leveraging common machine learning and data science tools, i.e. pandas, scikit-learn, PyTorch, etc.
- Experience building production-grade machine learning deployments on AWS, Azure, or GCP
- Graduate degree in a quantitative discipline (Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics, Operations Research, etc.) or equivalent practical experience
- Experience communicating and/or teaching technical concepts to non-technical and technical audiences alike
- Passion for collaboration, life-long learning, and driving business value through AI
- [Preferred] Experience using the Databricks Intelligence Platform and Apache Spark™ to process large-scale distributed datasets
- Willing to travel once every 4-8 weeks to see customers (as needed)
Pay Range Transparency
Databricks is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The pay range(s) for this role is listed below and represents the expected salary range for non-commissionable roles or on-target earnings for commissionable roles. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to job-related skills, depth of experience, relevant certifications and training, and specific work location. Based on the factors above, Databricks anticipates utilizing the full width of the range. The total compensation package for this position may also include eligibility for annual performance bonus, equity, and the benefits listed above. For more information regarding which range your location is in visit our page here.
Local Pay Range$182,000—$250,208 USD
About Databricks
Databricks is the Data and AI company. More than 20,000 organizations worldwide — including adidas, AT&T, Bayer, Block, Mastercard, Rivian, Unilever, and 70% of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Data + AI Platform to build and scale data and AI apps, analytics and agents. Headquartered in San Francisco with 30+ offices around the globe, Databricks offers a unified platform that includes Genie, Lakebase, Agent Bricks, Lakeflow, Lakehouse, and Unity Catalog. To learn more, follow Databricks on LinkedIn, X, YouTube, and Instagram.
Benefits
At Databricks, we strive to provide comprehensive benefits and perks that meet the needs of all of our employees. For specific details on the benefits offered in your region click here.
Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion
At Databricks, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive culture where everyone can excel. We take great care to ensure that our hiring practices are inclusive and meet equal employment opportunity standards. Individuals looking for employment at Databricks are considered without regard to age, color, disability, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and other protected characteristics.
Compliance
If access to export-controlled technology or source code is required for performance of job duties, it is within Employer's discretion whether to apply for a U.S. government license for such positions, and Employer may decline to proceed with an applicant on this basis alone.
How we rate this
AI Engineer – Forward Deployed Engineering (AI FDE) at Databricks rates 85 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Also common in AI engineer jobs at this level
Pay
- This job starts at
- $182k
- Typical AI engineer job
- $184k
This posting starts close to the typical AI engineer job. See AI engineer jobs
Questions you could be asked
- How would you design a retrieval step so the model answers from real data instead of guessing?
- Walk me through fine-tuning a model: what data did you use, and how did you check the result?
- Tell me about a research question you investigated. What did you find?
- Tell me about a project where artificial intelligence was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where generative ai was part of your work. What did you do?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: RAG, Fine-tuning, AI Research, Artificial Intelligence, and Generative AI. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.
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