Forward Deployed AI Architect

About Distyl AI

Distyl AI develops production-grade AI systems to power core operational workflows for Fortune 500 companies. Powered by a strategic partnership with OpenAI, in-house software accelerators, and deep enterprise AI expertise, we deliver working AI systems with rapid time to value – within a quarter.

Our products have helped Fortune 500 customers across diverse industries, from insurance and CPG to non-profits. As part of our team, you will help companies identify, build, and realize value from their GenAI investments, often for the first time. We are customer-centric, working backward from the customer’s problem and holding ourselves accountable for creating both financial impact and improving the lives of end-users.

Distyl is led by proven leaders from top companies like Palantir and Apple and is backed by Lightspeed, Khosla, Coatue, Dell Technologies Capital, Nat Friedman (Former CEO of GitHub), Brad Gerstner (Founder and CEO of Altimeter), and board members of over a dozen Fortune 500 companies.

What We Are Looking For

At Distyl, we build AI systems that operate inside the most complex enterprise environments in the world. Doing this well requires AI Architects who can take full ownership of how intelligent systems are structured, integrated, secured, and operated in production—while remaining deeply hands-on in the work.

Forward Deployed AI Architects are experienced builders with the technical judgment to design and evolve end-to-end AI systems across real enterprise stacks. They operate as trusted technical counterparts to customer engineering leadership, security teams, and operators, and are expected to make and defend architectural decisions that balance capability, risk, and operational reality. Their authority comes from execution, not title.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the technical shape of AI systems deployed in customer environments

• Define how models, agents, data pipelines, APIs, and orchestration layers fit together, how those systems integrate with existing enterprise infrastructure, and how they are operated safely and reliably at scale. Their focus is on cross-cutting architectural patterns that span multiple customer systems, ensuring consistency, safety, and long-term evolvability across deployments

• Hands-on throughout the lifecycle—building reference implementations, reviewing and evolving production systems, and stepping in directly on high-risk or high-impact technical problems

• Accountable for architectural coherence across teams and over time, ensuring that systems remain composable, secure, observable, and adaptable as requirements evolve

• Investigate how AI systems, legacy systems, and human operators interact in practice.

• Identify failure modes, risk surfaces, and integration bottlenecks, and establish guardrails and patterns that allow teams to move quickly without sacrificing safety, auditability, or correctness

• Act as peers to senior technical leaders in customer engagements—whiteboarding architectures, pressure-testing assumptions, and translating business objectives into concrete, executable system designs. They influence direction through clarity of reasoning and demonstrated delivery, not escalation

What We Require

• 5+ years of software engineering experience

• Proven Ownership of Complex System Architecture: You have designed, built, and operated complex distributed systems in production, and have taken responsibility for how those systems evolve over time. You are comfortable making irreversible or high-impact architectural decisions and owning their consequences

• Depth in AI Systems and Integration: You can reason fluently about how AI components—models, agents, retrieval, evaluation, orchestration—interact with data platforms, APIs, and existing services. You understand how design choices affect reliability, latency, security, and debuggability in real deployments

• Strong Security and Risk Intuition: You bring a security-first mindset to system design, with practical experience around data access, identity, auditability, and compliance. You can articulate tradeoffs clearly and design systems that satisfy enterprise risk requirements without crippling velocity

• Hands-On Execution: You write and review production code, build critical integration paths, and stay close to the system. You are comfortable dropping into ambiguous, high-stakes technical situations and unblocking progress through direct execution

• Customer-Facing Technical Credibility: You can engage confidently with senior customer engineers and operators, ask sharp questions, and earn trust through technical depth and follow-through. You are able to represent Distyl as a long-term technical partner in complex enterprise environments

• Travel: Ability to travel 25-50%

What We Offer

• The base salary range for this role is $130K – $250K, depending on experience, location, and level. In addition to base compensation, this role is eligible for meaningful equity, along with a comprehensive benefits package

• 100% covered medical, dental, and vision for employees and dependents

• 401(k) with additional perks (e.g., commuter benefits, in‑office lunch)

• Access to state‑of‑the‑art models, generous usage of modern AI tools, and real‑world business problems

• Ownership of high‑impact projects across top enterprises

• A mission‑driven, fast‑moving culture that prizes curiosity, pragmatism, and excellence

Distyl has offices in San Francisco and New York. This role follows a hybrid collaboration model with 3+ days per week (Tuesday–Thursday) in‑office..

We’re grateful for the strong interest in this role. The best way to get your profile in front of our team is to apply directly through our careers page, where all applications are reviewed. Due to the high volume of interest, we’re not able to review or respond to all direct emails or LinkedIn messages. We will be in touch with every applicant once we’ve completed our review, regardless of the decision.