Bonterra
Website:
bonterratech.com
Job details:
Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)
Role Type: Full-time | Senior Individual Contributor (Hands-on)
Experience: 6+ years overall, with 2+ years in AI/GenAI development
About the Job
Location: Hyderabad, India (WFH, 2-3 times a month in office)
Type: Full Time/ Senior Individual Contributor (Hands On)
Salary: Negotiable based on experience
Hours: 3PM-12MN (Semi-Flexible)
You are a senior engineer who works from inside the reality of the team you're embedded with — not from behind a ticket queue. You learn how they actually operate, spot the real problem behind the stated one, and build the solution end-to-end: agentic workflows, AI applications, and the infrastructure behind them.
You're technical enough to build and configure anything, and close enough to the work to understand the workflows, constraints, and edge cases that make or break a solution. When a project would normally stall for weeks — messy data, an unpredictable workflow exception, a “we can't go live without this integration” moment, an engineering team booked out three sprints deep — you're the person who says: don't worry, I'll build it.
Then you ship it, watch real people use it, and make it better. You're measured by what runs in production and what it changes, not by tickets closed.
What You'll Do
• Embed with a team or function and become fluent enough in their work to see problems they haven't fully articulated yet
• Solve the real problem, fast — turning messy, ambiguous situations into working AI agents and
applications that automate real workflows and handle complex, multi-step tasks
• Own the whole stack for what you ship — backend services (Python, and Node.js where applicable), agent orchestration, LLM integration, RAG pipelines, memory/state management, and the cloud infrastructure it runs on
• Handle the things that normally derail timelines — incomplete data, workflow exceptions, must-have integrations, engineering bandwidth gaps — by unblocking rather than escalating
• Build and optimize RAG systems including chunking strategies, embedding pipelines, vector search, and retrieval evaluation
• Integrate LLMs (Claude, GPT, Gemini, open-source models) into production systems with appropriate guardrails, observability, and cost controls
• Ship fast, then iterate in the field — prototype in days, get it in front of real users, and improve it based on what actually happens in production
• Deploy and operate AI systems on AWS with attention to latency, scale, reliability, and security
• Build observability, evaluation, and cost controls into what you ship by default, so AI behavior in production stays visible and debuggable
• Collaborate with product and business stakeholders to translate ambiguous problems into shippable AI solutions
• Stay current with the rapidly evolving AI ecosystem and bring credible recommendations on tooling, models, and architectural patterns
Must Have Qualifications
• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience• Strong hands-on Python for backend development and AI workloads
• Hands-on experience building AI agents in production — not just LLM API integration, but agent orchestration, tool use, and multi-step reasoning
• Proficiency with AI frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, or equivalent
• Hands-on AWS experience including core services such as Lambda, API Gateway, RDS, DynamoDB, S3, and IAM
• Hands-on RAG experience including vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS, Chroma, etc.), embeddings, and retrieval optimization
• Experience with non-relational databases (DynamoDB, MongoDB, Redis, vector stores, or similar)
• Experience operating production systems — including monitoring, alerting, incident response, and performance/cost optimization
• Solid understanding of REST APIs, microservices, async processing, and event-driven architectures
• Ability to design systems, not just implement specs — strong architectural judgment and communication
Nice to have
• Node.js experience for service development and integrations
• Hands-on experience with AWS Bedrock or other managed AI/ML services
• Experience with multiple LLM providers and model evaluation
• Prompt engineering depth and experience with evaluation frameworks (RAGAS, custom eval harnesses, etc.)
• Basic understanding of Evidently and Langfuse for AI/ML observability and monitoring
• MLOps / LLMOps experience including model deployment, monitoring, and CI/CD for AI systems
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CDK)
• Familiarity with AI governance, responsible AI practices, and compliance frameworks (GDPR, SOC 2, HIPAA, or industry-specific equivalents)
• Frontend familiarity (React, Next.js) for building AI-powered user interfaces
• Relevant AWS or AI certifications
You are perfect for this job if you have these
• Builder mindset: You ship. You'd rather have something imperfect in front of a user this week than something perfect in a month, and you have a track record of taking AI projects from idea to production.
• High agency: Dropped into an unfamiliar team with a fuzzy problem, you go figure it out — you don't wait for a spec.
• Customer-embedded, not code-only: You can sit with a non-technical stakeholder, earn their trust, and pull the real requirements out of them.
• AI-forward thinking: You stay current, experiment with new models and tools, and have informed opinions about what works.
• Pragmatic architect: You make sound build-vs-buy decisions, understand tradeoffs, and design for the actual problem — not the most impressive solution.
• Honest about limits: You know where AI shines and where it fails, and you don't oversell.
At Bonterra, we’re building AI-powered tools to solve real human challenges—and we want teammates who share that enthusiasm. We value people who will champion AI and bring diverse perspectives from different industries, backgrounds, and cultures. Together, we create AI that breaks down barriers, empowers communities, and delivers better outcomes.
At this time, we are unable to consider candidates who require current or future sponsorship for employment authorization.
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Our Culture
At Bonterra, we’re innovating with a higher purpose: to increase giving to 3% of US GDP by 2033, creating $573 billion more in global impact every year. At Bonterra, we foster an inclusive, equitable culture where every team member belongs and contributes to meaningful impact. Read more about our values and culture here
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Equal Opportunity & Accommodations
At Bonterra, we are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We provide equal employment opportunities without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
If you require a reasonable accommodation during the application process, please submit here
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