Forward Deployed Engineer - AI Voice and Chat Platform to $15800

ThirstySprout is the exclusive recruiting partner for this role. We represent a leading global travel technology company that has raised over $750M in funding and serves hundreds of millions of travelers worldwide. Their B2B division powers AI-driven travel and fintech solutions for major airline, hospitality, and financial services brands. This team operates at Series A speed inside that larger organization — high ownership, fast iteration, and AI-native engineering culture.

About the Team

The Customer Experience (CX) Product team owns the entire post-booking journey — from the moment a trip is booked through changes, disruptions, refunds, and customer support interactions.

The team builds and operates the systems that enable fast, high-quality support at scale, including customer self-serve experiences within the app and partner-integrated flows, internal agent platforms for efficient human resolution, and a flagship agentic AI platform used both internally and offered as a B2B solution for global travel partners.

Together, these platforms support millions of travelers across chat, voice, web, and third-party channels, powering seamless post-booking experiences worldwide.

About the Role

As a Forward Deployed Engineer —  on AI Voice & Chat Platform team, you’ll combine engineering depth with customer-facing collaboration, embedding directly with partners to design, implement, and iterate on AI-driven service automation — from API integration across telephony, CRM, and travel supply systems to LLM prompt design, testing, and ongoing optimization.

This role bridges applied AI engineering, field deployment, and partner co-creation. It’s key to scaling the next generation of autonomous service technology for the travel industry.

Key Responsibilities

Platform Operations

• Configure and maintain AI assistant deployments across partner environments, including conversational flows, LLM prompt management, and system orchestration
• Conduct user acceptance testing (UAT) and regression QA for voice/chat bots — measuring and tracking accuracy, latency, and conversational quality
• Monitor operational health through analytics and logging tools; identify issues and coordinate fixes with Product and Core Engineering
• Contribute to the design of self-serve configuration capabilities for partners

Partner Integration & Enablement

• Support technical and operational onboarding for new partner integrations, including telephony (Twilio, Amazon Connect, Genesys, Five9, Avaya), CRM/ticketing (Salesforce, Zendesk, ServiceNow), and travel inventory platforms (PMS, GDS, CRS)
• Work hands-on with partner engineers to implement and validate platform capabilities and best practices
• Maintain strong relationships with external and internal stakeholders to ensure satisfaction, adoption, and continuous improvement

Data, Quality & Continuous Improvement

• Define and track performance metrics including conversation accuracy, escalation frequency, latency, and adherence to partner policies
• Design experiments and analyze conversation data using SQL, Python, and other tools to identify trends and performance gaps
• Contribute to prompt engineering and test new conversational behaviors to ensure the assistant meets partner brand tone and expectations

System Architecture & Workflow Automation

• Understand and document how telephony, CRM, and AI components interconnect; identify risks and opportunities for optimization
• Build and maintain automation scripts and tools to streamline implementation and monitoring
• Ensure robust data governance, version control, and documentation for all integrations

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Serve as operational liaison between Product, AI Engineering, and operational teams
• Act as incident manager during outages or performance issues — swift triage, communication, and resolution
• Support roadmap planning with data-backed insights into feature adoption, partner feedback, and operational pain points

Minimum Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with APIs, JSON, SQL, and Python for data manipulation, workflow validation, and automation
• Understanding of LLM-based systems, prompt design, and conversational AI testing methodologies
• Familiarity with voice synthesis and ASR technologies (e.g., ElevenLabs, Whisper, Deepgram, OpenAI Realtime)
• Knowledge of cloud telephony / CPaaS providers (e.g., Twilio, Amazon Connect, Genesys, Avaya, Five9)
• Experience with CRM and ticketing systems (Salesforce, Zendesk, or equivalent) and their connection to voice/chat workflows
• Bias for action — autonomous, takes initiative to research problems, find solutions, and communicate with stakeholders
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English
• Ability to travel to the United States (~15–20%) for partner engagements

Preferred Qualifications

• Technical and operational knowledge of the travel technology ecosystem — GDS systems (Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport), hotel PMS/CRS platforms, OTA partner APIs for flights, hotels, and ancillary products
• Experience in a Forward Deployed, Solutions Engineering, or Applied AI implementation role
• Experience implementing contact routing, IVRs, and customer journey flows using technologies like NICE IEX, Amazon Connect, or Kustomer
• Prior experience with AI chatbot/voicebot operations and/or B2B SaaS integrations
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex partner integrations from kickoff through steady-state support
• Proficiency with operational tools such as Jira, Confluence, Amplitude, Datadog
• Deep subject matter expertise in customer service operations
• Ability to create compelling data visualizations that communicate complex insights clearly