AI Solutions Architect / FDE

About the role D2R AI Labs is looking for a hands-on Senior AI Solutions Architect / Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) with 8-12 years of experience to design, build, deploy and scale enterprise AI solutions. Most GenAI projects don't fail at the model. They fail in the gap between a demo and a client's production environment. This role exists to close that gap - combining AI engineering, solution architecture, enterprise integration and direct customer ownership, from business discovery and architecture through production deployment and optimisation. This is customer-facing ownership, not internal development or architecture documentation alone. Full job description: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18KoIX0NCNOw3spiMtwalcU25hDnV7Ikj/preview DETAILS • Experience: 8-12 years • Compensation: INR 30-50 LPA, based on experience, technical depth, certifications and customer-facing capability • Location: Flexible - Remote, Hybrid or in-office (Chennai), based on what works for you • Engagement: Full-time, Contract or C2H WHAT YOU'LL DO AI architecture and solution design • Design scalable, secure, production-ready AI/ML and Generative AI architectures. • Architect solutions using LLMs/SLMs, RAG, Agentic AI, AI agents, embeddings, vector databases and retrieval systems. • Translate business requirements into technical architectures, technology choices and implementation roadmaps. • Balance performance, latency, scalability, security and cost when selecting models and architectures. Customer-facing / FDE ownership • Work directly with enterprise customers and senior stakeholders to identify high-value AI opportunities. • Own delivery from discovery and POC through production deployment, adoption and optimisation. • Lead architecture workshops, technical discussions, solution demos and customer presentations. • Bridge customer requirements with engineering and product teams, and rapidly validate solutions in real-world environments. Hands-on AI engineering • Build production-grade AI applications using Python and modern AI/ML frameworks. • Develop RAG pipelines covering ingestion, chunking, embeddings, indexing, retrieval, reranking, context management and evaluation. • Build and orchestrate AI agents and workflows using LangChain, LangGraph or equivalent frameworks. • Work with LLM/SLM APIs, open-source models, fine-tuning, inference optimisation and model evaluation. • Develop APIs, backend services and scalable data pipelines for enterprise AI applications. Enterprise deployment and integration • Integrate AI solutions with ERP, CRM, ITSM/ticketing systems, databases, business applications and third-party APIs. • Deploy using Docker, Kubernetes and major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure or GCP). • Work with GPU infrastructure, model serving, inference optimisation, scalability, latency and cost optimisation. • Implement AI observability, monitoring, evaluation and production performance measurement. Technical leadership • Drive architecture decisions, engineering standards, reusable patterns and AI development frameworks. • Mentor engineers and provide technical direction across AI and software engineering initiatives. • Create reusable AI playbooks, accelerators, frameworks and best practices. WHAT YOU'LL BRING (MUST-HAVE) • 8-12 years of overall software/technology experience, with significant AI/ML and/or enterprise architecture experience. • Strong customer-facing technical delivery and enterprise stakeholder management - proven ability to independently lead discovery sessions and technical conversations with senior business stakeholders. • Production experience with Generative AI, RAG, LLMs/SLMs, embeddings, retrieval systems and/or Agentic AI. • Strong hands-on Python development. • LangChain and/or LangGraph experience. • Strong software architecture and AI system design capabilities. • Experience taking AI solutions from POC/prototype to production. • Cloud deployment plus Docker/Kubernetes experience. • Experience integrating with at least one major enterprise system: ERP, CRM, ITSM/ticketing, database or business API. NICE TO HAVE • Palantir Foundry certification (Application Developer / Data Engineer track - AIP, Ontology) and hands-on Foundry/AIP experience. • GPU optimisation and large-scale model inference. • AI evaluation frameworks and production observability. • Fine-tuning and preference optimisation (LoRA, QLoRA, PEFT, distillation, DPO, GRPO). • Experience building reusable AI platforms, accelerators or internal frameworks. • Domain experience in Banking & Finance (preferred) or Energy & Utilities. • Strong executive-level communication and presentation skills. THE IDEAL CANDIDATE Someone who can walk into a customer environment, understand the business problem, design the AI solution, build and integrate it, take it to production, and keep improving its performance and business impact. You'll demonstrate: • Clear, end-to-end ownership: business problem to architecture to prototype to production. • Strong coding ability alongside architecture and system-design skills. • The ability to make, explain and defend technical architecture decisions. • Proven stakeholder management - comfortable independently driving discovery sessions with senior business stakeholders, not just engineering teams. • A track record of operating AI systems in production with measurable business impact.