Forward Deployed Engineer

NextBigWhat; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Avanade Next is seeking Forward Deployed Engineers to sit inside client environments from week one, turning business ambition into production reality and leading the build in Studios. You will work across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth in a flexible placement with autonomy and direct stakeholder exposure.

This role emphasizes building production-grade, end-to-end AI systems, from prototypes to live deployments, using the Microsoft AI stack and Avanade platform.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in software or AI engineering with production systems to point to.
• Strong practical command of Azure AI Foundry, Copilot Studio, Azure OpenAI and agent orchestration.
• Full-stack capability—from front end to APIs, data, and orchestration.
• Experience building and evaluating agentic systems, including retrieval, tool use, and failure handling.
• Comfortable in high-autonomy client environments with stakeholders.
• Proven track record of turning prototypes into production quickly.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with clients and architects to shape commercially viable, production-ready solutions.
• Build and deploy agentic AI systems end-to-end and prove strategy with prototypes.
• Design on the Avanade Agentic Platform and Microsoft AI stack; ensure guardrails.
• Contribute reusable components and patterns across engagements.

Skills

Software engineering

AI engineering

Full-stack development

Azure AI Foundry

Copilot Studio

Azure OpenAI

Agent orchestration

Client-facing

Tools

Azure OpenAI

Copilot Studio

Agent orchestration tooling

Job description

SUMMARY

Forward Deployed Engineers are the engineering core of Avanade Next. They sit inside the client from week one and turn business ambition into production reality — proving the direction in Consulting with a working prototype, leading the build in Studios, and configuring products for client environments. They work alongside business stakeholders, Industry Reinvention Leads, Domain Architects, Value Architects and Trust Architects to understand what matters commercially, then build the system that delivers it.

This is not a order-taking role. Forward Deployed Engineers help clients decide what should be built, challenge assumptions where the value is not there, and lead the work through to live deployment. They work in small expert teams directing agent networks rather than large delivery pyramids, and they carry accountability from the first brief through to production — which is unusual, and is the point.

Location: Flexible across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Client Partnership & Problem Framing

• Work with clients, Industry Leads, Domain Leads, Value Architects and Trust Architects to understand business priorities.

• Shape solutions that are commercially viable, technically feasible and production-ready.

• Operate with autonomy in ambiguous client environments.

Build & Deployment

• Build and deploy agentic AI systems end-to-end.

• In Consulting, build prototypes that prove strategy is real.

• In Studios, take use cases from prototype to production-grade systems.

• In Products, configure and deploy pre-built products into client environments.

Technology & AI-Native Practice

• Design on the Avanade Agentic Platform and Microsoft AI stack.

• Apply agent-assisted development, automated evaluation, observability and production operations.

• Work with Trust Architects so evaluation, accuracy and guardrails are built in.

Reuse & Contribution

• Contribute reusable components, patterns and assets from every engagement.

• Work with Value Architects to keep delivery tied to measurable outcomes.

• Carry context across phases so learning compounds.

KEY MEASURES

• Client outcomes achieved through production deployments, evidenced by business value realised and client referenceability

• Production-grade delivery on every engagement; no prototype handed over without a production path.

• Demonstrable productivity through AI-native engineering practices and agent utilisation.

• Reusable assets contributed to the library from every engagement.

• Accuracy and evaluation thresholds met before release.

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SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

• 5+ years in software or AI engineering, with production systems to point to.

• Strong practical command of Azure AI Foundry, Copilot Studio, Azure OpenAI and agent orchestration; equivalent depth on another stack considered if the transfer is credible.

• Full-stack capability — front end, APIs, data and agent orchestration — enough to ship something whole.

• Experience building and evaluating agentic systems, including retrieval, tool use, and failure handling.

• Comfortable being deployed into a client environment with high autonomy and direct exposure to stakeholders.

• Track record of turning a prototype into production at pace, without leaving the mess for someone else.

• Able to hold a business conversation as well as a technical one — comfortable in front of client stakeholders without an intermediary.

Work Rights: Australian Citizens are preferred; however, Permanent Residents will also be considered.

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