Forward Deployed Team Lead (AI)

Location: Redwood City, California, United States. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States without current or future company sponsorship.

Salary: $130,000–$194,000 USD annually, plus equity and benefits.

Company

C3 AI develops enterprise AI application software, including an AI platform, industry-specific SaaS applications, and generative AI products.

What you will do

• Own customer accounts from workflow scoping and technical architecture through production deployment.
• Design data flows, integrations, identity models, and deployment architectures across customer infrastructure.
• Write production backend services, data pipelines, APIs, and integrations.
• Own deployment roadmaps, statements of work, milestones, risks, dependencies, and delivery outcomes.
• Lead customer working sessions, executive briefings, status communication, and account expansion activities with Sales.
• Deploy and operate solutions across data warehouses, ERP/CRM systems, and AWS, Azure, or GCP environments while meeting enterprise security and compliance requirements.

Requirements

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• 6+ years of production software delivery experience, including 2+ years as a technical lead or senior individual contributor owning delivery end-to-end.
• Strong proficiency in Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, Java, Go, or C++.
• Experience taking commercial or enterprise systems from zero to production and working directly with business and technical stakeholders.
• Deep expertise in at least one vertical such as financial services, healthcare, energy, manufacturing, or defense.
• Experience with cloud data warehouses, REST/GraphQL APIs, ERP/CRM platforms, CI/CD, Docker/Kubernetes, cloud-native services, and infrastructure as code.

Nice to have

• Experience as a technical lead or staff engineer at a SaaS or enterprise software vendor with a forward-deployed or professional services model.
• Experience deploying AI/ML platforms or data-heavy enterprise applications at scale.
• Experience with managed ML/AI services and regulated-industry delivery.
• Ability to turn ambiguous customer problems into repeatable deployment patterns.

Culture & Benefits

• Competitive compensation package with a generous equity plan.
• Excellent employee benefits.
• Work focused on enterprise AI deployments and long-term customer value.