Forward Deployed Engineer - Lead AI & Agentic Engineer

Description

The company runs and reimagines mission-critical technology systems for some of the world's leading businesses.

This lead-level Forward Deployed Engineer role (Band 9) focuses on AI and agentic engineering across major enterprise AI programmes.

You start on meaningful projects from your first day, working on systems customers rely on daily.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical direction and delivery of large enterprise AI programmes, from agentic systems and generative AI applications through to production.
• Map enterprise goals onto target-state AI architectures and present them to senior stakeholders.
• Lead the team's technical direction while staying hands-on, pairing closely with platform engineers across design, build and deployment.
• Build agentic AI applications, multi-agent workflows and the frameworks behind them for enterprise use cases.
• Create RAG pipelines and connect LLM APIs, vector databases and MCP (Model Context Protocol) tooling.
• Turn unstructured data into condensed, structured knowledge, including ontology extraction.
• Write production Python services with FastAPI, applying sound practice in design, testing, code review and CI/CD.
• Model and serve data for AI applications using relational and graph databases such as Postgres and Neo4j.
• Work with platform engineering on hosting, scaling and MLOps/LLMOps without owning that infrastructure yourself.
• Set AI governance and responsible-use guardrails covering data privacy, LLM governance and policy enforcement with OPA/Rego.
• Add observability with OpenTelemetry and Prometheus so AI behaviour and cost remain visible in production.
• Convert enterprise requirements into AI solution roadmaps for senior stakeholders.
• Document field learnings, codify reusable agentic patterns and mentor engineers hands-on.
• Oversee architecture across multi-disciplinary workstreams while staying close enough to unblock the team.
• Depending on the engagement, only some of these will apply to a given project.

Requirements

• You do not need to meet every item below to apply; the list reflects the breadth of the role.
• You have 8-10+ years in software or solution engineering, including shipping AI systems in client-facing work.
• You write strong Python with FastAPI and follow sound SDLC habits: design, testing, code review, CI/CD, Git and GitHub.
• You have hands-on work with agentic AI frameworks such as LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen, Semantic Kernel, OpenAI's Agents SDK or Google's Agent Development Kit, plus MCP.
• You have practical experience building RAG or LLM pipelines and using vector databases.
• You have worked with relational and graph databases such as Postgres and Neo4j to model data for AI applications.
• You use AI coding copilots such as Claude, Codex or Cursor in your day-to-day work.
• You communicate clearly with senior stakeholders, linking AI capability to business outcomes.
• Preferred: You have instrumented AI systems for observability with OpenTelemetry or Prometheus.
• Preferred: You have experience with TensorFlow or PyTorch and the Hugging Face and open-source AI ecosystem.
• Preferred: You have experience with image understanding and OCR.
• Preferred: You have working knowledge of policy-as-code with OPA/Rego for AI governance and guardrails.
• Preferred: You understand LLM governance, including data privacy, guardrails and responsible-use controls.
• Preferred: You have a T-shaped profile, with deep AI engineering skills and broad knowledge of software engineering and technical consulting.
• Preferred: You are willing to travel and work on customer premises as required.
• Preferred: You hold a degree in computer science, data science, informatics, engineering, physics, mathematics or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.

Conditions

The role follows a hybrid-friendly, flexible working model.

The company welcomes people of all cultures, backgrounds and experiences and encourages you to apply even if you do not meet every requirement.

Benefits

• Be Well programmes support your financial, mental, physical and social health.
• Career planning tools, personal development goals aligned with your ambitions, and continuous feedback.
• Access to certifications from Microsoft, Google and Amazon, plus coaching and hands-on learning opportunities.