Forward Deployed Engineer/Chief

About the Position

We are building AI-native solutions for our clients - products where LLM and its harness are the core of the value. This is a builder's role: you and your team are responsible for building agentic systems, writing the production code, and standing up the evals and observability.

Feel free to work remotely from anywhere across Lithuania or connect with colleagues at our Vilnius and Kaunas offices.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and ship AI-native systems E2E - agents, workflows, RAG and the harness: custom tool calling, sandboxing, context engineering and sub-agents, caching, compaction
• Build the evaluation pipelines and use them to prove the system is genuinely useful
• Design for failure in the agent loop: retries, model fallbacks, cost limits and human-in-the-loop on consequential actions
• Capture domain expertise and repeatable workflows so what works on one engagement carries to the next
• Engage early to help shape the use case and check technical feasibility
• Write production-grade Python: integrations, APIs, data access, deployment
• Work directly with SMEs and end-users through interviews, UAT and observing the real workflow, and validate that the system fits how people actually work

Requirements

• 7+ years of engineering experience, with a strong recent track record building production AI / LLM applications (not prototypes or research only)
• Strong agent-design judgment - task-harness fit, matching the harness to the context, failures and policies of the actual task rather than calling a model in a loop
• Capability to operate close to the client: lead discovery and feasibility conversations, work directly with SMEs and end-users, and explain technical trade-offs to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Hands-on experience with agentic frameworks (LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel) and major LLM providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini)
• Expert-level Python and solid software engineering fundamentals
• Strong RAG and retrieval skills: vector databases, embeddings, hybrid search, re-ranking, chunking and context management
• Proven experience evaluating generative AI quality - LLM-based evaluation, heuristics, custom eval frameworks - and using observability/tracing tools (LangSmith, Arize Phoenix, Langfuse)
• Production deployment experience on at least one major cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP) with containerization, CI/CD
• Sound judgment under ambiguity - scoping, sequencing and making the call on speed vs. quality vs. scope
• English at C1 level

Nice to Have

• Experience designing experiments, A/B testing and iterating on AI products against real user behavior and business metrics
• Background in NLP, Data Science or applied ML, with experience moving models into production
• Familiarity with MCP, A2A and Agent Skills, and emerging agent standards
• Experience with enterprise AI platforms (AWS Bedrock AgentCore, Databricks Genie, Microsoft Foundry)
• Exposure to AI governance, security and compliance (guardrails, prompt-injection prevention)

We Offer

• Global Community of Experts: Learn from and collaborate with top professionals across 55+ countries.
• Advanced Tech Stack: Work on innovative projects and apply or enhance your expertise in Cloud, Data, AI and other emerging technologies.
• Industry Leadership: Join the company recognized globally as a leader in Life Sciences and technology, with 12 of the top 15 Life Science companies relying on us.
• World-Class Clients: Make an impact for 340+ Forbes Global 2000 companies, including the world’s 10 top Pharma, Life Science and MedTech clients.
• Professional Growth: In-house training, mentorship and resources to help you become a highly valued T-shaped professional, combining deep LSHC expertise with diverse tech skills.
• Hybrid Setup: Enjoy the flexibility to work from anywhere in Lithuania, whether at home or in our dynamic offices in Vilnius and Kaunas.

Other employee benefits

• Private health insurance, including well-being and psychological support
• Participation in the Employee Stock Purchase Plan with a 15% discount
• Access to external educational platforms, including LinkedIn Learning and Udemy
• Employee referral program with bonuses for successful hires
• PERKS discount platform and other exclusive EPAM offers
• **Corporate SIM card **with unlimited calls and internet

About the Company

EPAM is a leading global provider of digital platform engineering and development services. For over 30 years, our team has helped leading brands navigate the waves of digital transformation, building solutions that help them stay competitive through constant market disruption. With offices in 55+ countries, EPAM has grown in Lithuania to over 1,300+ talented innovators in just 5 years. We foster creativity and unconventional ways of doing things, welcoming like-minded professionals to join us.