Stott and May
Forward Deployed AI Engineer - UK Founding hire
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Job Description
Lead Forward Deployed AI Engineer — UK Founding Hire
An industry-leading US-based AI company, known for building and deploying generative AI systems that transform large-scale enterprise operations is expanding into the UK. As their UK Founding Engineer, you’ll be the first local member of a high-performing global team, helping to build the engineering and deployment presence from the ground up and moving forwards, help lead the UK office/function.
The Role
As a Forward Deployed AI Engineer, you’ll work directly with enterprise customers to build, operate, and continuously improve production-grade GenAI systems. This is a hands-on, impact-driven role where you’ll design and iterate on end-to-end solutions that blend models, agents, data, and evaluation frameworks into reliable, scalable deployments.
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As the first UK hire, you’ll build alongside a world-class engineering and research team deploying frontier AI capabilities and will be enabled to shape the foundation of their UK function and engineering culture; whilst working on systems that move beyond prototypes.
What You’ll Do
- Design and implement compound AI workflows that combine models, retrieval, evaluation, and execution into cohesive production systems.
- Operate on live AI deployments: monitor behaviour, identify failure modes, and iterate continuously to improve performance and reliability.
- Integrate systems into real customer environments; from data platforms and APIs to business applications.
- Collaborate directly with enterprise teams, often in high-visibility projects, explaining technical trade-offs and outcomes with clarity.
- Take ownership of real-world outcomes, ensuring AI systems deliver measurable business value and adapt as client needs evolve.
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Skills And Experience Required
- 7+ years of hands-on software/AI engineering experience (Python preferred)
- Strong foundation in system design, debugging, testing, and performance optimization.
- Proven experience building AI-driven applications - not just using APIs, but composing prompts, models, agents, and evaluation mechanisms into operational systems.
- Comfortable working in dynamic customer-facing environments and communicating clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Naturally curious about AI and proactive in experimenting with new tools and techniques.
- Willingness to travel occasionally (25–50%).
For further information and immediate consideration, please get in touch.
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