Forward Deployed Team Lead

About this role

C3 AI (NYSE: AI), is the Enterprise AI application software company. C3 AI delivers a family of fully integrated products including the C3 Agentic AI Platform, an end-to-end platform for developing, deploying, and operating enterprise AI applications, C3 AI applications, a portfolio of industry-specific SaaS enterprise AI applications that enable the digital transformation of organizations globally, and C3 Generative AI, a suite of domain-specific generative AI offerings for the enterprise. Learn more at: C3 AI

Forward Deployed Team Leads are senior technical leads who own a commercial or enterprise customer end-to-end. You’ll combine strong technical architecture, hands-on coding, product ownership, project management, and stakeholder communication—embedding directly with customers to take our product from “design” to “in production.”

You’ll own one account at a time: scope the workflow with business and technical stakeholders, design the architecture, write the code that closes the gaps, and drive the deployment through to measurable business value.

Responsibilities:

• Technical architecture. Own data flow, integration topology, identity model, and deployment architecture across the customer’s infrastructure.

• Hands-on coding. Write production code yourself—backend services, data pipelines, APIs, integrations.

• Product ownership. Own the deployment’s roadmap. Execute on the statement of work. Decide what’s in scope, what’s a one-off, and what should become product.

• Project management. Own the plan, milestones, risks, and dependencies. When something slips, know first and flag first.

• Stakeholder communication. Run customer working sessions, brief executive sponsors, and write clean status updates that senior stakeholders will actually read.

• Ship into production. Deploy from dev through UAT into production—including integration with customer data warehouses, ERP/CRM systems, and cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP).

• Enterprise readiness. Ensure the platform is configured, secured, and monitored to meet enterprise security and compliance requirements (SOC 2, ISO 27001, data residency, etc.).

• Bridge field back to product. Push field learnings into the core platform so the next deployment is faster.

• Account growth and development. Partner with Sales to identify expansion opportunities within the account—surfacing new use cases, supporting renewal conversations, and ensuring successful deployments convert to long-term customer relationships.

Qualifications:

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

• 6+ years shipping production software, with 2+ years as a tech lead or senior individual contributor owning delivery end-to-end.

• Strong proficiency in Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, Java, Go, or C++.

• Demonstrated ownership of systems taken from zero to production in a commercial or enterprise context.

• Bring deep expertise in at least one vertical (financial services, healthcare, energy, manufacturing, or defense) to accelerate time-to-value and credibility with customer stakeholders.

• Experience working directly with business and technical stakeholders at mid-market or enterprise accounts—comfortable in both exec-level conversations and deep technical design sessions.

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