Summary
✨ AI‑Generated
A lead engineering role for someone who enjoys solving real customer problems end to end. You will work directly with a small number of demanding customers, understand their needs, build and deploy solutions, and combine data integration, backend services, user interfaces, LLMs, and agentic AI.
Highlights
Provides end-to-end ownership of customer problems, from discovery through production deployment and adoption. The role combines customer interaction, software development, data integration, backend services, interfaces, and emerging AI technologies.
Description
Lead Forward Deployed Engineer
Belfast (hybrid)
If you're an engineer who would rather be solving a customer's real problem than working through a backlog of tickets, this one is worth a read.
My client builds a secure AI platform used by highly regulated organisations across the UK.
Their applications are already running in live environments for some very demanding customers, and they're hiring Forward Deployed Engineers to work directly with those customers.
As a Lead FDE you'll work closely alongside a small number of customer teams and own their problems end to end.
You'll work out what they actually need, build it on top of the platform, get it into production and make sure people use it.
What you'll be doing
Working directly with customers to understand how they operate and pin down the problems worth solvingBuilding and shipping solutions on the platform end to end, from data integration and backend services through to the interfaces people useGetting LLM and agentic applications into production in secure environments, and keeping them runningOwning delivery for your customers, from scoping through to adoptionFeeding what you learn back to the platform and product teams
What you'll need
Strong software engineering fundamentals in Python or comparable, with a track record of shipping systems into productionReal, hands-on experience building with LLMs in production, not just a proof of conceptBreadth across the stack: data pipelines, APIs, backend services, and enough frontend to put something usable in front of peopleComfort working directly with customers, including non-technical stakeholders, and turning a loosely defined problem into something you can buildDaily use of AI tools in how you build, including agentic coding tools such as Claude Code or Cursor
Nice to have
Previous forward deployed, solutions engineering or consulting-style delivery experienceExperience in government, public sector, financial services or other regulated industriesFamiliarity with RAG, agentic frameworks and protocols such as MCPCloud experience (AWS, GCP or Azure) and containerisation with Docker or Kubernetes
On offer is a competitive salary, share options, pension and private medical, plus one of the most generous approaches to time off I've come across in the Belfast market.
If this sounds like you, send me a message or drop your CV and I'll give you the full picture.
Brendan McCrory
