Head of AI / Forward Deployed AI Architect

Job Title

Head of AI / Forward Deployed AI Architect

Experience

7+ Years

Job Location

Kokapet, Hyderabad

Working Model

Work From Office (5 Days a Week)

Working Days

Monday to Friday

Work Timings

09:00 AM to 05:00 PM / 09:00 AM – 06:00 PM

Notice Period

Maximum 60 Days

Reporting To

CEO

About the Role

We are looking for a highly experienced, hands-on Head of AI / Forward Deployed AI Architect who can lead the company's AI technology function and drive end-to-end AI solution delivery, from client discovery and solution architecture to development, deployment, and production success.

This is a strategic yet deeply technical and client-facing leadership position. The ideal candidate should have strong experience in AI/ML engineering, LLMs, Generative AI, agentic workflows, RAG architectures, and enterprise AI deployments, along with proven expertise in presales, solution consulting, and managing enterprise client relationships.

The person will work directly with the CEO, lead the technical department, establish project-based engineering pods, mentor AI engineers and consultants, and contribute to building the company's long-term AI architecture and technology strategy.

The company operates on a Services-to-Product (Services as Software) model, combining enterprise AI consulting, implementation, and reusable AI-powered solutions.

Mandatory Skills

Python, Generative AI, LLMs, SLMs, RAG, Agentic AI, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Hugging Face, NLP, AI/ML, Multimodal AI, AWS / Azure / GCP, AI Solution Architecture, Production AI Deployment, Technical Presales, Enterprise Client Management, Team Leadership.

Key Responsibilities

Enterprise Client Engagement & AI Consulting

Lead technical discovery sessions with enterprise and mid-market clients across global markets.

Understand business challenges, operational pain points, data maturity, and AI readiness.

Engage with CXOs, VPs of Operations, IT leaders, and other senior stakeholders as a trusted AI advisor.

Conduct AI readiness assessments, technical workshops, and value-stream-mapping sessions.

Translate ambiguous business requirements into practical AI use cases and implementation roadmaps.

Build long-term client relationships that generate repeat business, referrals, and expanded engagements.

AI Solution Architecture & Presales

Own end-to-end solution design for AI consulting proposals, including use-case identification, technical architecture, data requirements, and ROI estimation.

Develop and present technical PoCs, solution blueprints, architecture diagrams, and proposals.

Work closely with commercial teams to create technically strong and commercially viable proposals.

Lead technical responses to RFPs and RFIs.

Define AI architecture patterns covering LLM orchestration, RAG pipelines, agentic AI workflows, and multimodal AI systems.

Evaluate emerging AI frameworks, technologies, and research to identify opportunities for business adoption.

Hands-on AI Engineering & Deployment

Design, develop, and deploy production-grade AI/ML solutions using Python and modern AI frameworks.

Build and optimize LLM applications, Small Language Models (SLMs), RAG pipelines, agentic systems, and multimodal solutions.

Work on the complete AI lifecycle, including data ingestion, preprocessing, model development, orchestration, deployment, monitoring, and optimization.

Handle production constraints, system integrations, scalability, performance, latency, and AI infrastructure costs.

Optimize LLM token consumption, API credits, model usage, and overall solution economics.

Troubleshoot production issues, improve system performance, and ensure successful client deployments.

Drive go-live milestones, client acceptance, and post-deployment success metrics.

Technical Leadership & Team Development

Lead and develop the company's overall AI and technology department.

Build a scalable project-based engineering pod structure for different client engagements.

Define team structures, technical ownership, delivery responsibilities, and engineering standards.

Recruit, mentor, and develop AI engineers, data scientists, and technical consultants.

Guide teams on AI architecture, engineering best practices, client communication, and production delivery.

Collaborate with engineering and data science teams to ensure technical feasibility and high-quality implementation.

Establish reusable architecture patterns, internal frameworks, and solution accelerators.

Technology Strategy & Innovation

Define the company's long-term AI technology roadmap and architecture standards.

Drive innovation across Generative AI, LLM applications, agentic workflows, RAG, and multimodal AI.

Identify emerging technologies and frameworks that can improve solution delivery and business outcomes.

Contribute to internal knowledge development through technical documentation, case studies, whitepapers, playbooks, and reusable AI accelerators.

Help evolve the company's services business towards scalable, repeatable, product-oriented AI solutions.

Mandatory Skills & Experience

Overall Experience

7+ years of overall professional experience.

Strong hands-on experience in AI/ML, Generative AI, NLP, Computer Vision, or advanced analytics.

At least 4 years of experience in client-facing AI consulting, presales, solution architecture, or technical advisory roles.

Proven experience working directly with enterprise-level clients.

Core AI & Technical Expertise

Strong programming experience in Python.

Hands-on experience with LLMs, SLMs, and Generative AI applications.

Experience building and deploying

RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) pipelines.

Agentic AI architectures and multi-agent workflows.

LLM orchestration and application frameworks.

Multimodal AI systems.

NLP and advanced AI/ML solutions.

Experience with frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, Hugging Face, or equivalent.

Hands-on exposure to AWS, Azure, or GCP AI/ML services.

Understanding of AI model