Lead AI Forward Deployed Engineer

Role Overview

As Lead AI Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be the first dedicated AI engineering hire for CHAGEE's APAC region, based at our Singapore regional headquarters. You will work hands-on with business leaders across supply chain, retail operations, marketing, franchise services and corporate functions to turn high-value business problems into AI solutions in production, working with leading cloud platforms, AI model providers and third-party technology partners. For the first six months you will be a hands-on technical lead, setting the standard for how AI is built and delivered across the region. As the AI team grows, you will build and lead a team of Forward Deployed Engineers.

Role Responsibilities

• AI Commercialisation and Integration: Lead AI deployment across core APAC business areas, working with major cloud providers (such as AWS and Alibaba Cloud), AI model providers and third-party vendors to assess, design and quickly deliver solutions.
• Enterprise AI Platform: Design the regional AI infrastructure and tooling, including an LLM API gateway, vector databases, agent orchestration frameworks and AI-assisted development workflows. Package model capabilities in a standard way so they work across multiple vendors.
• Cost, Security and Compliance: Own cost optimisation for third-party AI services (token strategy and quota management), data security, privacy compliance across APAC markets, and high-availability design.
• Technical Leadership: Act as the region's first AI spearhead, building showcase projects and setting technical standards, coding conventions and ways of sharing work across the team.
• Team Building: As the AI team scales, take on team building, FDE hiring, technical mentoring and performance coaching.
• Vendor and Ecosystem Partnerships: Act as the regional technical point of contact for AWS, Alibaba Cloud, leading model providers and independent software vendors. Lead joint solution design, POCs and commercial and technical negotiations.
• Business Partnership: Work closely with operations, product and supply chain leaders to turn complex business needs into clear technical blueprints and product roadmaps.
• Systems Integration: Partner with Group IT, data platform, infrastructure and information security teams to break down data silos and make sure AI applications connect smoothly with core systems such as ERP and POS.

Role Requirements

Essential

• Bachelor's degree or above in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence or a related field.
• 5+ years of software development and architecture experience, including at least 2 years delivering LLM applications, building agents or designing AI-native product architecture.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, microservices, cloud-native (Docker/Kubernetes) and multi-tenant architecture.
• Thorough understanding of LLM fundamentals, prompt engineering, fine-tuning strategies and major models and platforms (such as Claude, GPT, DeepSeek and AWS Bedrock).
• Expert in Python and/or TypeScript, with hands-on experience in FastAPI, Next.js or similar frameworks.
• Proficient with agent orchestration and RAG frameworks (such as Dify, LangChain and LlamaIndex), with experience choosing and tuning vector databases (such as Pinecone, Milvus and Qdrant).
• Fluent with AI-native development tools such as Cursor and AI-assisted coding, with a proven ability to ship an MVP within 1–2 weeks.
• Strong technical evaluation, solution design and commercial negotiation skills with cloud providers, AI vendors and service partners.

Preferred

• Extensive experience working with major cloud providers, or integrating with third-party technology and SaaS vendors.
• Experience leading digital transformation at a large traditional enterprise, or upgrading IT architecture in retail or consumer goods.
• Background in new retail, F&B chains, FMCG or internet/e-commerce.
• Experience working across multiple APAC markets, or with regional or global headquarters in a matrix organisation.