Atomic

Founding Forward Deployed Engineer

Atomic • $150K — $180K *
US-AnywhereRemote in United States
Enterprise Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Today
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Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's or master's degree in a relevant field
  • 5+ years of experience in AI engineering
  • Proven track record of building and deploying domain-specific AI applications
  • Familiarity with state-of-the-art AI models like Claude, GPT, and Gemini
  • Ability to manage and mentor AI teams
  • Strong analytical skills and a data-driven approach to decision-making

Responsibilities

  • Build and deploy an industry-specific AI model within the first month
  • Create infrastructure to evaluate AI agents replacing human workflows
  • Optimize model selection based on vertical-specific needs
  • Engage directly with customers to understand their workflows
  • Develop a comprehensive AI engineering playbook for future teams
  • Move legacy datasets to new AI-native systems
  • Lead a small team of embedded AI engineers in various subsidiaries

Benefits

  • A dynamic and innovative work environment
  • Opportunities for direct impact and ownership of projects
  • Encouragement for diverse and inclusive practices
  • Collaborative culture with a focus on practical results
  • Possibility for professional growth through diverse project exposure
Full Job Description
The Role

You will be the AI engineer. You'll own:
  1. Building the industry-specific GPT: the reasoning layer that encodes the domain expertise of each vertical we operate in.
  2. Embedding AI-native functionality directly into our AI-native system of record: not bolt-on chatbots. Core workflow replacement. Agents that do the job.
  3. Moving legacy systems of record datasets into new ai-native ones: Core workflow replacement. Agents that do the job.
  4. Making it repeatable: Every new company we bring into the portfolio should benefit from the playbook, model stack, eval harness, and infra you build.
  5. Managing AI talent across our operating companies: you'll be a player-coach for the AI engineers embedded at each sub.


Split: 90% building. 10% managing. If that ratio scares you, this isn't your role. If it excites you, keep reading.

What You'll Do...
  • Ship a working domain-specific agent into a live customer environment in your first 30 days
  • Build the eval infrastructure that lets us measure whether these agents are actually replacing human workflows (not vibes)
  • Fine-tune, distill, or route across frontier + open models depending on the economics of each vertical
  • Sit with customers. Watch them work. Instrument their workflows. Rebuild them.
  • Write the AI engineering playbook that every future portfolio company inherits on day one


Who You Are...
  • You are a builder first. You've shipped things people actually use. Alone or as the clear technical lead.
  • You are a forward-deployed engineer. You'll fly to a customer site, sit in their office, and understand the business before you write a line of code.
  • You've been called a 10x engineer and it wasn't in a self-review.
  • You have strong opinions about when to fine-tune vs. prompt vs. RAG vs. agent vs harness and you can defend them with numbers.
  • You've built with the current frontier stack (Claude, GPT, Gemini, open models) in production, not just in a Jupyter notebook.
  • You are allergic to slide decks and comfortable with ambiguity, small teams, and unglamorous industries.


What This Role Is Not...
  • A research role. We ship.
  • A management role. You build.
  • A "Head of AI" title for LinkedIn. You will be in the codebase daily.
  • A place for people who need process, roadmaps handed to them, or a 20-person team to feel productive.

We are focused on building a diverse and inclusive workforce. If you're excited about this role, but do not meet 100% of the qualifications listed above, we encourage you to apply.

About Atomic

General Atomics is an American energy and defense corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, specializing in research and technology development. This includes physics research in support of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion energy. The company also provides research and manufacturing services for remotely operated surveillance aircraft, including the Predator drones, airborne sensors, and advanced electric, electronic, wireless, and laser technologies.
Learn more about Atomic
Industry
Finance & Insurance
* Ladders Estimates

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