Forward Deployed Architect

About Climb

Climb is a Data and AI consultancy that partners with enterprises to design, build, and operationalize modern data platforms and production AI systems. As a Databricks partner, we go deep on lakehouse architecture, machine learning, and applied AI, with a bias toward production over proof of concept. Our team brings deep technical expertise and a builder's mindset to every engagement, and we measure our work not just by what ships, but by the business impact it drives.

Role Summary

The Forward Deployed Architect owns the technical architecture of a client engagement. You take business objectives and translate them into a production-ready system, defining the platform architecture, technical standards, integration patterns, and implementation approach that guide delivery from discovery through production.

This is a hands-on architecture role. You stay close to the implementation, solving the hardest technical problems, reviewing critical design decisions, and writing code where it adds the most value. Your responsibility is to ensure the system remains coherent as multiple workstreams come together, balancing scalability, security, maintainability, performance, cost, and delivery speed.

You partner closely with the Forward Deployed AI Lead to align technical decisions with engagement goals and business outcomes. While the AI Lead owns the overall engagement and client relationship, you own the system itself, providing the technical direction that enables the engineering team to deliver with confidence.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end system architecture on your engagement: platform architecture, data and AI design, integration patterns, observability, security, and operational readiness.

• Take engagement objectives and turn it into a coherent target architecture and an implementation plan the engineering team can execute against.

• Make the platform and pattern decisions, model selection, agent and pipeline architecture, data flow, security, and cost, and stand behind them.

• Guide and review the engineering team's implementation, ensuring individual workstreams integrate into a coherent production system.

• Stay hands-on: write code on the critical path and prove out the hard parts of the architecture yourself.

• Partner with the Forward Deployed AI Lead to align architecture with business priorities, engagement scope, and delivery sequencing.

• Deliver architecture documentation, implementation guidance, and production-ready systems that customers can confidently operate after handoff.

• Contribute reference architectures, patterns, and accelerators back to the practice.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering or technical architecture experience, including production systems in cloud environments (AWS, Azure, or GCP).

• Proven experience serving as the technical design authority for production systems delivered to customers.

• Hands-on depth across one or more of: LLM application and agent development, production data engineering, or backend systems at scale.

• Demonstrated ability to guide multiple engineers while maintaining architectural consistency across the system.

• Still codes: comfortable working on the critical path and proving out the hard parts yourself.

• Strong communicator: technically precise with engineers, clear and confident with VP- and C-level leadership.

• High tolerance for ambiguity; can turn a loosely scoped problem into a build the team can execute.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building production AI systems: RAG pipelines, agents, fine-tuned models, or LLM-native applications.

• Hands-on experience with Databricks (Delta Lake, Workflows, Unity Catalog, Mosaic AI) is a strong plus.

• Background in a consulting firm, systems integrator, or professional services environment.

• Familiarity with SOW-based, outcome-priced delivery and active scope management.

Note on certification: Databricks experience is valued but not required at hire. Both Databricks and Anthropic certification are expected to be obtained post-hire.

Who Thrives Here

• You think in whole systems, not just the component in front of you, and you keep the architecture coherent as the build grows.

• You stay close to the code; you'd rather prove the hard part yourself than hand it off and hope.

• You can hold the technical line with a client's architects and still get into the details with the engineers building it.

Why Climb

• Ground floor, real backing. You are joining early, with founders who have built and exited firms like this before. You help write the playbook rather than inherit one.

• Outcomes, not hours. We sell and deliver against business results. Advancement is tied to delivery performance and account impact, not utilization targets.

• Senior team, no body-shop drag. Small pods of A-players, heavy internal AI leverage, and no bloated middle layers between you and the work.

• IP that compounds. Every engagement feeds reusable accelerators, patterns, and points of view back into the practice.

What We Offer

• Competitive base salary with performance-based bonuses

• MacBook Pro and swag kit so you can do your best work

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance

• 401(k) with company match

• Generous holidays, flexible PTO, and remote-first work environment

• Professional development budget including Databricks and cloud certifications

• Spot bonuses for relevant certifications

• Conference attendance and thought leadership opportunities

• Collaborative, low-ego culture with direct access to leadership

• Opportunity to shape a growing practice from the ground floor

Climb is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.