Senior Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) Lead

Role Summary

The Senior FDE Lead will be the embedded client-facing technical builder who converts Model Office and design decisions rapidly into working configurations, AI workflows, prototypes and demonstrations.

This person needs the unusual combination of software/AI engineering ability, solution architecture, rapid prototyping and client presence.

The FDE Lead should be comfortable sitting in a client design session, understanding a requirement, translating it into a technical approach, building or configuring it rapidly, testing it with users, learning from the results and iterating in near-real time.

This is emphatically not a traditional project manager or solution architect who hands requirements to an offshore development team. The person must be able to build.

Key Responsibilities

• Embed directly with Centene functional, clinical and technology teams.
• Translate Model Office decisions into working sandbox configurations and prototypes.
• Develop and configure AI-enabled workflows and agents.
• Write code where required to integrate, prototype or extend platform capabilities.
• Rapidly prototype solutions during design cycles.
• Test AI outputs and workflow behavior against expected outcomes.
• Build evaluation approaches and use results to improve prompts, models, agents and workflow logic.
• Work with business/clinical users to gather feedback and iterate rapidly.
• Troubleshoot issues across configuration, APIs, data, AI behavior and workflow orchestration.
• Maintain and prioritize the configuration/FDE backlog.
• Lead other FDEs and potentially coach Nexus Fellows.
• Partner with core Product and Engineering teams when prototype/configuration work needs to become hardened product functionality.
• Demonstrate working functionality directly to client stakeholders.

Technical Profile

Candidates should have meaningful hands-on experience with several of the following:

• Python
• Modern LLM APIs and frameworks
• Agentic AI / orchestration
• Prompt and context engineering
• AI evaluation/testing
• APIs and integration
• JSON / data transformation
• SQL and data analysis
• Cloud environments
• Rapid prototyping
• Workflow/configuration platforms
• Git and modern software-development practices

Healthcare experience is helpful but technical capability and FDE mentality are more important for this role.