Lead Forward Deployed Engineer

The Lead Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) is the senior technical anchor for Bounteous client engagements built on Claude. You embed with client teams, find the workflows where agents change business outcomes, and ship governed, production-grade agentic systems on Anthropic's stack. The role combines hands-on engineering, solution architecture, and client leadership. You are the person a client's engineering leadership calls when an agent has to work in production, not just in a demo.

You will lead integrated squads using Bounteous Arc, our framework for running a hardened, repeatable, governable agentic development lifecycle with Claude Code. You will also turn what you learn in the field into reusable patterns for every engagement that follows.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Own the end-to-end technical design of agentic solutions on Claude, from discovery and workflow mapping through production rollout and continuous improvement.
• Match autonomy to the use case using Anthropic's agent design patterns: start with the simplest composable workflow (prompt chaining, routing, parallelization) and move to orchestrator-subagent or evaluator-optimizer designs only when the task requires it.
• Select the right runtime for each workload: the Claude Agent SDK for agents embedded in client applications, Claude Managed Agents for long-running hosted agents, and Claude Code for engineering workflows, deployed through the Claude Platform, Claude Platform on AWS, or Amazon Bedrock based on client cloud and compliance needs.
• Design the tool and context layer: build and govern MCP servers that connect Claude to enterprise systems and data, package domain expertise as Agent Skills, and apply context engineering (progressive disclosure, compaction, memory, subagent context isolation) so agents stay accurate across long, multi-step tasks.
• Lead model strategy across the Claude family, matching Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku to task complexity, latency, and volume, and using prompt caching, batch processing, and extended thinking and effort controls to keep cost predictable.
• Define human-in-the-loop checkpoints, permission scopes, and approval gates matched to each workflow's risk profile.

Delivery & Engineering Excellence

• Lead and mentor engineers across geographies, including Context Engineers, Evaluation Engineers, and Orchestration Architects, through an AI development lifecycle.
• Build with Claude Code as the primary engineering environment, using subagents, hooks, plugins, project memory conventions, and headless runs in CI to deliver consistently at speed.
• Make evaluation the backbone of delivery: define success criteria before building, create eval suites from real client tasks (code-graded, model-graded, and human review), and gate every release on them.
• Instrument observability and cost controls from day one, with tracing of agent sessions, tool calls, and token spend per workflow.
• Ship production artifacts (MCP servers, Agent Skills, subagents, plugins) and harden the best of them into reusable assets across engagements.

Client & Stakeholder Engagement

• Embed with client engineering, platform, and business teams as their primary technical point of contact, including on-site when the work calls for it.
• Run discovery to identify where agents create measurable value, and translate findings into a phased, fundable roadmap.
• Partner with client risk, security, and governance stakeholders on data handling, MCP server approval, audit logging, and enterprise admin controls.
• Work alongside Anthropic's account and Applied AI teams on joint engagements, representing Bounteous as a trusted delivery partner.
• Drive lasting adoption by helping client teams roll out Claude Enterprise, Claude Cowork, and Claude Code with organization-managed skills and plugins, so value persists after the engagement ends.

Required Skills & Experience

• 8+ years in software engineering and solution architecture, with significant client-facing or forward-deployed delivery.
• A track record of shipping LLM-based agents to production (not only prototypes), ideally on Claude.
• Hands-on depth with the Claude API (tool use, structured outputs, prompt caching, streaming), the Claude Agent SDK, and MCP server development.
• Daily fluency with Claude Code and agentic coding practices.
• Strong prompt and context engineering: system prompts, tool descriptions, and skills that hold up against messy enterprise data.
• Experience designing evaluation frameworks and using them to drive engineering decisions.
• Proficiency in Python and TypeScript, modern backend architecture, and cloud deployment (AWS preferred).
• Enterprise data integration experience, including when to use retrieval-augmented generation versus agentic search over live systems.
• A strong grasp of agent governance, security, observability, and risk controls.
• Experience leading teams in complex, regulated enterprise environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Anthropic certification, such as Claude Certified Architect (Foundations or Professional).
• Prior experience in BFSI or other regulated industries.
• Production experience with Claude Managed Agents or multiagent orchestration.
• Claude deployments on AWS, including IAM, network isolation, and data residency requirements.
• Experience rolling out Claude Enterprise or Claude Cowork with admin-managed skills and plugins.
• Experience in global, distributed delivery models.
• Contributions to the MCP or Agent Skills ecosystems, or other open-source work.

What Success Looks Like

• Client agents run in production, governed and measured by business outcomes rather than demo quality.
• Every engagement leaves behind MCP servers, skills, and eval suites that make the next one faster.
• Clients see Bounteous as the Claude partner they call for their hardest problems, not just a delivery vendor.
• Cost, latency, and risk are predictable, tracked, and reported.

Why This Role at Bounteous

• Lead strategic Claude engagements as part of Bounteous's Anthropic Preferred partnership.
• Shape how Bounteous delivers agentic systems at scale across clients and industries.
• Balance hands-on engineering with architectural and leadership impact.
• Work in a culture that values clarity, pragmatism, and real-world outcomes over hype.