Forward Deployed Engineer
2 days ago
London
Work location : Grace church street, London (Candidate should be willing to work from HCL office in Grace church street London, this will be Hybrid working) • Build agentic AI solutions: single and multi-agent systems, tool use, retrieval pipelines, automation and prototypes that reach production., • Build on the major agentic stacks, including the Claude Agent SDK, OpenAI Agents SDK, Google Agent Development Kit, Microsoft Agent Framework and vendor-neutral frameworks such as LangGraph, choosing the right one for the customer’s needs., • Work with customer technical teams to understand systems, constraints, data, deployment paths and operating needs., • Use coding agents and human engineering judgement to move quickly while preserving review, test and release discipline., • Integrate agents with enterprise systems, APIs, cloud services, databases, ticketing systems, model services and security controls, often through MCP and similar tooling., • Implement agent evaluations, automated tests, observability hooks, runbooks and release safeguards., • Troubleshoot implementation, deployment, data, model and integration issues., • Codify what works into reusable patterns, starter kits and playbooks, alongside technical decisions, defects, risks and lessons learned, to raise the floor for the wider practice., • Feed field insight back to the platform vendors through our partnerships, turning recurring friction and gaps into product feedback that shapes the tools you build on., • Support handover and production readiness with clear documentation and operational ownership., • Work with architects and delivery managers to keep implementation aligned to value and technical guardrails. These are the essentials. If you meet most of them, we want to hear from you. • Several years of production software engineering experience in Python, TypeScript, Java or comparable stacks., • Hands-on experience building with LLMs and agents on at least one major platform, such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Google or Microsoft., • Practical understanding of agentic patterns: tool use, retrieval, prompting, model behaviour, evaluation and multi-agent workflows such as orchestration, delegation and self-reflection., • Experience with APIs, databases, cloud platforms, integration surfaces or comparable deployment environments., • Strong debugging, testing and integration discipline., • Experience working in ambiguous delivery contexts with customers, users or cross-functional technical teams., • Ability to balance fast prototyping with production-quality engineering. These would strengthen your application, but they are not deal-breakers. We do not expect every candidate to bring all of them. • Experience taking agentic or AI systems from prototype to production rollout., • Experience with agent orchestration frameworks, MCP servers or custom tool integrations., • Experience with data and retrieval pipelines, workflow automation or model deployment., • Experience with evaluation, observability, troubleshooting or release safeguards for AI systems., • A vendor certification on one of the major AI platforms (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google or Microsoft). The strongest people in this role are: • Hands-on and pragmatic, with a bias towards working software., • Careful about quality, testing, integration and operational consequences., • Comfortable pairing with customers, architects, engineers and agents., • Quick to learn unfamiliar domains, APIs and systems., • Clear in writing, especially around decisions, assumptions, tests and handover notes., • Willing to challenge generated code and weak assumptions rather than accept output at face value., • Focused on user value without ignoring maintainability and production risk. We keep the process short and transparent. There are three stages, and we give you feedback at each step. • First conversation (about 45 minutes). A conversation with the hiring manager or a senior engineer about your background, motivation and the breadth of your experience across software, AI and client delivery. We also use it to explain the role, the pod model and how the practice works., • Technical interview (about 60 minutes). A deeper session on technical depth and communication. You present a previous project that fits the role well, then talk through a short delivery scenario, such as how you would frame and deliver an agentic proof of concept. We send the brief 48 hours ahead so you can prepare. We are not looking for polish or for you to pick the same tools we would; we want to see how you think., • Final conversation (about 60 minutes). A conversation with the practice lead about how you work, how you learn and whether the environment is right for you. This is a discussion, not a technical grilling. #J-18808-Ljbffr