Senior AI Forward Deployment Engineer

Your Opportunity

We have an exciting opportunity for a Staff Forward Deployment Engineer at our Merriam, KS office. The role is the most senior contributor in the Staff Forward Deployment Engineer track, building first on a strategic AI initiative or a multi-domain AI portfolio. The Engineer hands‑on builds using AI‑Assisted Development, orchestrates delivery (running standups, coordinating across business and IT teams, clarifying priority, confirming direction with leadership), and sets and operationalizes the technical patterns and standards that the Forward Deployment Engineer team follows.

The Engineer leads through the work, shipping the hardest, highest‑leverage parts of an initiative and turning what they build into reusable patterns for the rest of the team.

At Seaboard Foods, we create the most sought‑after pork. As a top U.S. pork producer/processor and leading exporter to 30+ countries, we are committed to excellence and connecting every step between our farms and family tables. With more than 5,400 employees across five states on farms, feed mills, and processing plants, we produce Prairie Fresh® pork while ensuring the well‑being of our animals, the environment, our employees, and the communities we call home.

We are a Fortune 500 employer and have been recognized as one of the “Best Places to Work.”

• Hands‑on build (60–80% of time)
• Own end‑to‑end delivery of the most complex parts of a strategic AI initiative, including scoping, design, build, test, and rollout. AI‑Assisted Development is the primary delivery mode;
  Pro‑code is used where it is not enough.
• Embed within customer teams to acquire deep domain knowledge, iterate in tight feedback loops, and ship working software that drives measurable business outcomes.
• Carry the hardest technical work in the initiative (integrations, ambiguous data problems, novel agent or workflow patterns) and demonstrate that AI‑Assisted Development can deliver it at production quality.
• Drive adoption hands‑on through demos, working prototypes, and embedded support during rollout; treat working software as the primary status mechanism.
• Stay current on emerging AI tools, agent platforms, and modern delivery practices, and pull proven patterns into the work as quickly as they earn their place.
• Partner with Application Support Engineers to confirm releases are operationally ready, with monitoring, runbooks, deployment approaches, and escalation paths in place before go‑live.
• Orchestrate delivery (10–20% of time): run the day‑to‑day cadence for the initiative, including standups, working sessions, and lightweight planning that keeps work moving and dependencies visible.
• Coordinate across business areas and IT teams (Architecture, Platform Engineering, Data Platform, Application Support, and external vendors) to surface and resolve blockers before they slow delivery.
• Clarify priority when the queue is ambiguous: pull the right people into the room, force the trade‑off conversation, and confirm direction with the sponsoring leader so the team can keep building.
• Coordinate with other FDEs on cross‑initiative dependencies and capacity trade‑offs that span beyond a single FDE’s scope.
• Set technical standards (10–20% of time): set reusable patterns and standards for AI‑Assisted Development (prompt structure, code organization, testing, and review practices) so the FDE team converges on what works.
• Lead design and implementation reviews across the FDE team to raise quality and reduce long‑term support burden.
• Mentor FDEs and Associate FDEs through pairing, code review, and quick coaching moments embedded in the work.
• Document the rationale for tool and pattern choices so others can follow without rediscovering the path; retire patterns that no longer work.

• Instills trust
• Communicates effectively
• Action‑oriented
• Ensures accountability
• Drives results

• 5+ years of technical delivery experience, with 2+ years in a senior or lead capacity (technical lead, staff engineer, or equivalent).
• Track record shipping production software hands‑on, including within the past 12 months.
• Hands‑on…