Forward Deployed Engineer - Akai

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer - Akai based in the United States. In this role, you will work at the intersection of AI engineering, customer consulting, and product delivery, helping businesses transform complex operational workflows into intelligent, automated solutions. You will collaborate directly with mid-market and enterprise customers to identify challenges, design AI-powered agents, and bring practical solutions into production. From initial discovery and rapid prototyping to deployment, adoption, and expansion, you will own the full implementation lifecycle. You will combine strong communication and stakeholder management skills with hands-on technical expertise to turn business needs into measurable outcomes. Working in a fast-paced, AI-driven environment, you will experiment with modern tools, iterate on real-world feedback, and contribute to continuous product improvement. This is an opportunity to shape how organizations adopt AI at scale while driving operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and commercial growth.

Lead end-to-end implementations: Manage customer engagements from discovery and workflow analysis through solution design, prototyping, deployment, adoption, and expansion. Collaborate on enterprise deployments: Partner with senior technical colleagues on larger enterprise accounts, managing day-to-day execution and delivering specific project workstreams. Analyze customer operations: Work closely with stakeholders to understand existing systems, business processes, operational bottlenecks, and opportunities for automation and improved efficiency. Build and deploy AI agents: Use AI development platforms, large language models, and lightweight scripting to prototype, test, and launch agents that address high-impact business challenges. Iterate and improve solutions: Deliver rapid prototypes, gather real-world user feedback, troubleshoot issues, and refine agents to maximize performance and business value. Contribute to product development: Implement smaller product enhancements independently, identify platform limitations, and coordinate effectively with engineering teams on more complex technical requirements. Drive adoption and customer value: Support customers after launch, encourage consistent usage, measure the impact of deployed solutions, and ensure implementations deliver lasting operational benefits. Identify growth opportunities: Recognize opportunities to extend solutions across customer accounts and collaborate with product and go-to-market teams to support expansion. Share insights and scale delivery: Communicate customer feedback, highlight recurring product gaps, improve internal tools, and help establish scalable implementation practices as the team grows. Requirements: Professional experience: At least 3–5 years of relevant professional experience is preferred. Exceptional candidates with approximately two years of experience may also be considered. This is a client-facing role requiring the confidence and maturity to engage with senior business stakeholders. Customer-facing and consulting skills: Experience in management consulting, entrepreneurship, product strategy, solutions engineering, or a similar role in a fast-moving organization. Career changers with relevant transferable skills are welcome. Practical AI experience: Demonstrated hands-on experience building AI-powered prototypes, agents, or automations using modern tools and large language models. You should understand their capabilities, limitations, and practical applications in business environments. Technical proficiency: Ability to independently prototype, troubleshoot, and refine solutions using SQL, lightweight scripting, APIs, no-code tools, and structured data such as JSON. A traditional software engineering background is not required, but strong technical curiosity and problem-solving skills are essential. Strong communication and presentation skills: Ability to build trust with customers, lead discovery conversations, present clear recommendations, and demonstrate working AI prototypes to both technical and non-technical audiences. Commercial awareness: Understanding of how customer outcomes connect to business value, revenue growth, account expansion, and long-term adoption. Adaptability and execution: Comfortable working in a dynamic environment where priorities shift quickly, decisions are made rapidly, and technical or operational challenges require hands-on solutions. Collaborative mindset: Ability to work effectively with customers, engineers, product managers, and go-to-market teams while taking ownership of individual deliverables. Preferred qualifications: An engineering, mechanical engineering, or applied science background; experience launching internal tools or AI automations that improve team performance; or domain knowledge in finance, treasury, payments, KYB/AML, logistics, HR, or payroll. Additional assets: Multilingual communication skills aligned with the region covered by the role, along with the ability to work across relevant time zones according to team requirements. Benefits: Competitive compensation: Annual gross base salary ranging from $130,000 to $160,000 USD , with final compensation determined by experience, skills, location, and other objective, job-related criteria. Equity opportunities: Stock grants may be available depending on role, employment status, and location. Flexible work environment: Remote work arrangement, with location and time zone expectations aligned with team needs. Workspace flexibility: Optional flexible office membership through IWG. Additional benefits and perks: Access to benefits and rewards tailored to employment status and country of residence. Fair and transparent compensation practices: Salary offers are based on role requirements and candidate qualifications rather than previous salary history. Inclusive workplace: Equal employment opportunities for qualified candidates, with reasonable application and interview accommodations available for applicants with disabilities or other needs.