Applied AI, Technical Lead, Forward Deployed AI Engineer

About The Job:

Mistral AI 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 a project teams of Applied AI Engineers, ensuring the 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 collaborating closely with research, product, and engineering teams to shape the future of our offerings.

As a Technical Lead, you will bridge the gap between cutting-edge AI research and real-world enterprise applications, ensuring our solutions are robust, scalable, and aligned with both customer needs and Mistral’s technological vision.

What you will do

- Deliver as an IC the critical lines of codes of our complex projects, you’ll be hands-on and de-risk the critical parts of our complex projects. You’ll stay deeply involved in coding, reviewing, and optimizing AI solutions.

- Lead technical teams of Applied AI Engineers, providing mentorship, technical guidance, and best practices for deploying state-of-the-art GenAI applications across industries.

- Lead 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, RAG, agentic workflows, and custom LLM applications, ensuring alignment with Mistral’s product roadmap and open-source initiatives.

- Drive innovation by identifying emerging trends in AI, evaluating new tools and methodologies, and championing best practices for fine-tuning, inference, and deployment.

- Work closely with product managers, researchers, and engineers to ensure seamless integration of customer feedback into Mistral’s product development cycle.

How We Work in Applied AI

- 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. You talk to whoever you need to talk to. The best idea wins, whether it comes from a principal engineer or someone in their first week.

- 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.

- You are fluent in English.

- You hold a PhD or Master’s degree in AI, Machine Learning, Computer Science, or a related field.

- You have 7/8+ years of experience in AI/ML, with at least 2+ years in a technical leadership role (e.g., Tech Lead, Engineering Manager, or Solutions Architect) focused on AI products or enterprise solutions.