Applied AI, Technical Lead, Forward Deployed AI Engineer

About Mistral

Mistral provides full-stack AI solutions: from frontier models to developer tools, applications, and compute. We partner with enterprises tackling the hardest problems across high‑stakes industries such as finance, manufacturing, defense, healthcare, and the public sector to co‑create customized AI systems that they can run on their terms. Our distributed teams are located in Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East, and we foster a collaborative culture that values creativity, low ego, and high standards.

Mistral is seeking a Technical Lead, Applied AI to drive the technical strategy, execution, and delivery of complex AI solutions for our enterprise customers. In this role you will lead project teams of Applied AI Engineers, ensuring successful deployment of Mistral AI products and the development of high‑impact, scalable AI use cases. You will act as the primary technical point of contact for our most strategic customers, guiding them through the entire lifecycle—from pre‑sales to post‑implementation—while working closely with research, product, and engineering teams to shape the future of our offerings.

• Deliver critical code as an individual contributor, staying deeply involved in coding, reviewing, and optimizing AI solutions.
• Lead and mentor technical teams of Applied AI Engineers, promoting best practices for deploying state‑of‑the‑art Generative AI applications across industries.
• Conduct technical discussions during pre‑sales, translating customer requirements into actionable solutions and communicating Mistral’s technological advantages to diverse stakeholders.
• Design and oversee the implementation of complex AI systems, including fine‑tuning, retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG), agentic workflows, and custom large language model (LLM) applications, ensuring alignment with Mistral’s product roadmap and open‑source initiatives.
• Identify emerging AI trends, evaluate new tools and methodologies, and champion best practices for fine‑tuning, inference, and deployment.
• Collaborate with product managers, researchers, and engineers to integrate customer feedback into Mistral’s product development cycle.

• We care about people and outputs.
• What matters is what you ship, not the time you spend on it.
• Bureaucracy is where urgency goes to vanish—talk to whoever you need to talk to. The best idea wins, regardless of seniority.
• Always ask why. The best solutions come from deep understanding, not from copying what worked before.
• We say what we mean. Feedback is direct, timely, and given because we care.
• No politics. Low ego, high standards.
• We embrace an unstructured environment and find joy in it.

• Fluency in English.
• PhD or Master’s degree in AI, Machine Learning, Computer Science, or a related field.
• 7/8+ years of AI/ML experience, with at least 2+ years in a technical leadership role (e.g., Technical Lead, Engineering Manager, or Solutions Architect) focused on AI products or enterprise solutions.
• Proven track record of leading teams to deliver complex AI projects, from prototyping to production, in industries such as tech, finance, healthcare, or industrial automation.
• Deep expertise in fine‑tuning LLMs, advanced RAG, agentic systems, and deploying NLP applications at scale.
• Proficiency in Python, PyTorch, and modern AI frameworks (e.g., Lang Chain, Hugging Face). Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) and MLOps tools is a plus.
• Strong software engineering skills, including API design, backend/full‑stack development, and system architecture.
• Excellent technical communication, able to articulate complex concepts to both technical and non‑technical audiences, including executives and engineers.
• Passion for mentoring and growing technical talent in fast‑paced, collaborative environments.

• Contributed to open‑source projects, particularly in the LLM or AI space.
• Experience in customer‑facing roles (e.g., Solutions Architect, Customer Engineer, or Technical Product Manager) focused on enterprise AI adoption.
• A track record of driving technical strategy and influencing product direction based on customer needs…