Contract Forward Deployed Engineer - AI POC Lead (Remote)

hedgehog lab; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 92,000 - 148,000; Full time

Job summary

Hedgehog Lab, a UK digital product consultancy, is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer (Contract) to lead the earliest stage of a client engagement. You’ll be the first engineer in, before there’s a delivery team or a plan, shaping the solution and getting buy-in from the client.

The role is hands-on with significant client contact, allowing you to define architecture, build proofs of concept, and establish an engineering pipeline for AI-enabled delivery.

Qualifications

• Experience using AI agents to build production software.
• Ability to break down poorly defined problems and ship working solutions.
• Strong TypeScript or Python across the full stack with NestJS or FastAPI.
• Experience presenting to clients directly and clear written ADRs/docs.
• Consulting, professional services or forward-deployed experience.
• Practical approach to architecture sized to POC, pilot or production.

Responsibilities

• Turn client goals into a solution architecture and technology choices.
• Build proofs of concept that validate the design and hand off.
• Define the engineering pipeline, tooling, workflows and guardrails for AI coding agents.
• Set the quality approach, including testing and code review.
• Knowledge transfer through pairing, leaving patterns for the client's engineers.
• Produce architectural decision records.

Skills

AI agents

TypeScript

Python

Client communication

ADR/docs

Tools

NestJS

FastAPI

Job description

Hedgehog Lab, a UK digital product consultancy, is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer (Contract) to lead the earliest stage of a client engagement. You’ll be the first engineer in, before there’s a delivery team or a plan, shaping the solution and getting buy-in from the client.

The role is hands-on with significant client contact, allowing you to define architecture, build proofs of concept, and establish an engineering pipeline for AI-enabled delivery.