Baseten · 16 hours ago
Engineering Manager - Forward Deployed Engineering (LLM)
San Francisco, CA
Full-time
Onsite
Mid, Senior Level
$220K/yr - $285K/yr
4+ years expBaseten is a company that powers mission-critical inference for leading AI companies. The Engineering Manager will lead and mentor a team of Forward Deployed Engineers, focusing on building and optimizing LLM inference workloads while ensuring best-in-class performance and reliability in production environments.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)Developer ToolsMachine LearningSoftwareSoftware Engineering
Responsibilities
Lead, mentor, and grow a team of Forward Deployed Engineers, providing guidance on technical direction, project execution, and professional development
Set clear goals and ensure timely, high-quality delivery across multiple customer-facing projects involving LLM deployment and inference optimization
Collaborate with leadership to align team priorities with company and customer goals, balancing short-term delivery, widely varying customer priorities, and long-term technical initiatives
Player-coach – While much of this role will be leading the team, you will also be expected to be a key driver on strategic product initiatives and customer engagements. The best managers derive credibility from being able to be hands-on when needed
Develop and maintain software systems and product features using one or more general-purpose programming languages in a production-level environment, with a preference for Python due to its relevance in ML projects
Drive customer impact by designing, implementing, and deploying Baseten solutions end-to-end (problem framing → evaluation → production deployment → monitoring). This involves working with customers’ engineering teams at every stage of the customer journey including: sales, implementation, and expansion
Deliver with velocity: turn vague objectives into clear specs and well-defined PoCs so we can rapidly ship well-tested services and outcomes for our customers
Optimize and enhance AI/ML projects, contributing to the continuous improvement of our technical stack. This includes developing features and PRDs with other engineering and product orgs
Own products and customer projects end-to-end, functioning as both an engineer, project manager, and product manager, with a focus on user empathy, project specification, and end-to-end execution
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field
4+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 1+ year in a leadership or mentorship capacity
Strong programming skills in Python, with production experience in building or optimizing ML inference systems
Proven experience with LLMs, inference optimization, or serving frameworks (e.g., vLLM, TensorRT, Triton, Hugging Face, Ray Serve)
Familiarity with observability, profiling, and cost/performance tradeoffs in production ML systems
Excellent communication and collaboration skills—able to lead cross-functional efforts and drive outcomes in ambiguous, fast-paced environments
Preferred
Experience leading customer-facing engineering teams or working directly with enterprise partners
Deep understanding of GPU infrastructure, distributed inference, or model compression techniques
Benefits
Competitive compensation, including meaningful equity.
100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance for employee and dependents
Generous PTO policy including company wide Winter Break (our offices are closed from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day!)
Paid parental leave
Company-facilitated 401(k)
Exposure to a variety of ML startups, offering unparalleled learning and networking opportunities.
Company
Baseten
Baseten is an AI infrastructure company that integrates machine learning into business operations, production, and processes.
51-200 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Baseten has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (6)
2024 (8)
2023 (1)
2020 (1)
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageTotal Funding
$285MKey Investors
BondGreylock
2025-09-05Series D· $150M
2025-02-19Series C· $75M
2024-03-04Series B· $40M
Leadership Team
Aaron Relph
Design
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