Staff Forward Deployed Engineer, AI/ML
DigitalOcean · Seattle
Posted about 3 months ago · $220,000 - $239,000
or apply directly on DigitalOcean's site. We never take the application ourselves.
Is this posting real?
- This role has been open
- 80 days DigitalOcean's roles stay open a median of 81 days
- Reposted
- No
- Salary listed
- Yes 68% of DigitalOcean's roles list one
- Ghost-job risk at DigitalOcean
- high 151 stale, 1 reposted of 151 open
- Hiring momentum
- 197 roles opened in the last 90 days ↑ up vs. the prior 90 days
- Last confirmed on the employer's board
- 2026-10-23
Measured from postings appearing on and disappearing from DigitalOcean's own greenhouse board since 2026-08-03. Full hiring picture for DigitalOcean.
About this role
As a Staff Forward Deployed Applied Scientist at DigitalOcean, you will work directly with high-growth startups and tech innovators to design and deploy custom autonomous agent architectures. Your role will involve architecting production-ready frameworks, integrating with customers to translate business needs into AI workflows, and synthesizing research with deployment. You will also drive reliability and evaluation of AI systems while optimizing the DigitalOcean ecosystem based on customer feedback.
- benefits
- 4/5
- freshness
- 1/5
- career value
- 5/5
- role clarity
- 5/5
- pay transparency
- 5/5
Scored from the posting itself — how clearly the role is described, how much it says about pay and benefits, and how recently it was listed. Not a judgement of DigitalOcean as an employer.
What you need
- 8+ years of hands-on experience in Applied AI, Machine Learning, or Data Science
- Proven experience building multi-agent orchestration engines and related frameworks
- Strong skills in writing clean, production-ready Python (Pydantic, FastAPI, Asyncio, PyTorch)
- High empathy and crisp technical communication skills
- Ability to articulate complex AI trade-offs to engineering leads and executive sponsors
- A bias for action and a powerful sense of ownership over the customer experience
Nice to have
- Ph.D. or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, AI, or a related technical field
- Experience in deep learning frameworks like PyTorch or TensorFlow
- Experience in publications, patents, and knowledge of latest research in LLM, VLM, Agentic frameworks
- Ability to translate complex business tasks into AI engineering solutions
- Experience collaborating with customers, model vendors, or ecosystem partners
What you get
- Competitive salary range of $220,000 - $239,000
- Bonus eligibility based on company and individual performance
- Equity compensation including grants upon hire and participation in Employee Stock Purchase Program
- Reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education
- Access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses
- Flexible time off policy
Worth weighing
- Role requires travel up to 30% for customer engagements and workshops
- Hybrid work model may not suit all candidates
- Fast-paced environment may be challenging for those preferring stability
Summarised from DigitalOcean's posting. Read the full original.
Listed by DigitalOcean on their greenhouse job board, last confirmed open on 2026-10-23. PitchMeAI is not the employer.
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