Lead Engineer, Applied AI (Customer Agent)

Boston · USD 176,000-264,000 · Onsite · Posted Oct 8, 2026

At a glance

The Lead Engineer for Applied AI (Customer Agent) will set the technical and product direction for a core area of a 0-to-1 conversational AI platform.
This role involves building and scaling agentic systems that handle real-world customer traffic, focusing on orchestration, governance, and reliability.
The position is based in Boston and requires an engineer who remains hands-on with code while mentoring others and shaping platform architecture.

Set the technical and product direction for a core area of the Customer Agent platform.
Architect and implement solutions for orchestration, evaluation, guardrails, memory, context, and failure handling.
Write and ship production code while reviewing designs and making critical technical decisions.
Define development patterns and mentor engineers through design reviews.
Partner with product, design, data science, and go-to-market leaders to shape product strategy.
Evaluate emerging AI technologies and integrate viable solutions into production.
Debug production issues and maintain system reliability for non-deterministic AI agents.

Proven experience building, scaling, and supporting production agentic systems.
Experience managing orchestration, evals, guardrails, and non-deterministic failure handling in production.
Demonstrated ability to own technical and product direction for a significant area beyond a single component.
Hands-on experience writing code, reviewing architecture, and debugging production systems.
Ability to communicate complex technical trade-offs to both engineering and product audiences.
Experience turning undefined problems into actionable plans.

Experience working on a multi-tenant agent platform at production scale.
Experience building 0-to-1 products or working in startup environments.
Track record with production evaluation systems, AI observability, or human-in-the-loop workflows for LLM-powered products.

In-office role based in Boston, MA.
May require up to 10% travel for onboarding, client/partner work, team meetings, and industry events.