Forward Deployed Engineer

Penelope; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

In-office London

Lunches at the office

Dinner after hours

Budget for tools/efficiency

Referral bonus

Job summary

Penelope Health in London is hiring its first FDE to help convert payer policies and notes into computable contracts. You will create our FDE playbook and work with clients to tailor the platform to precise needs, prioritising core functionality.

You will own end-to-end problems, ship for the user, and bring strong backend skills. US work eligibility is a plus, and the role requires in-office London presence.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience and ability to balance speed vs. quality when shipping.
• End-to-end ownership of a problem that is not perfectly defined.
• You ship for the user and have strong technical skills, ideally backend.
• US right to work is a plus

Responsibilities

• Create our FDE playbook.
• Work closely with clients to tailor our platform to their exact needs.
• Generalise client problems to understand and prioritise core platform functionality.

Skills

Backend development

Shipping fast

End-to-end ownership

Tools

Python

AWS

Railway

Prefect

LakeFS

Pydantic AI

Job description

American healthcare providers spend hundreds of billions a year creating and optimizing health insurance claims. Payers spend a similar amount adjudicating them.

AI was supposed to fix this, but really it's making things worse. Providers use AI to improve claims; payers deploy AI to deny them. Both sides spend more; neither gains. So we're collapsing the middle of this negative-sum system and building the infrastructure that makes healthcare billing deterministic.

We're converting payer policies and medical notes into computable contracts grounded in formal logic - exposed via API and MCP, evaluated at the point of care, optimized for token efficiency, latency, and accuracy. We're replacing the adversarial back-and-forth between providers and payers with transparent, auditable, pre‑agreed rules.

When we succeed, we'll materially reduce the cost of care for the American patient.

About us

On September 18 we announced a $100 million commitment led by our new partners at Thoreau, alongside our existing investors Bertelsmann Healthcare Investments, Twine Ventures, and Seedcamp.

Ten months ago this company was two people and a question: will my insurance cover this procedure? Now we are hiring across New York and London to become the intelligence platform both sides of American healthcare build upon.

Our angels include Dane Knecht (Cloudflare CTO), Lord Ara Darzi, and the Head of Microsoft AI Health. Tech stack: Python, Railway, AWS, Prefect, LakeFS, LLMs with Pydantic AI and evals.

What You’ll Work On

You’d be our first FDE so you will:

Create our FDE playbook

Work closely with clients to tailor our platform to their exact needs.

Generalise client problems to understand and prioritise core platform functionality.

What We’re Looking For

You have 3+ years of experience and are able to perfectly balance speed vs. quality when shipping

You enjoy taking end-to-end ownership of a problem which is not perfectly defined.

You ship for the user!

You have strong technical skills, ideally backend.

US right to work is a plus

What We Offer

Competitive salary (£120k–£160k ($200k-$280k) + meaningful equity) + meaningful founding-team equity

London, in-office 5-days a week (with some flexibility)

Lunches at the office: Wild Wednesday's (pitch crazy ideas), Friday lunch & learn (can be any topic)

Dinner covered if staying late

Budget for anything that will make your life easier or more efficient/pleasant.

The chance to shape the technical foundation of a company building core infrastructure for a $200B+ market

We also offer a $10k referral bonus (after the referred hire finishes a 3 month probation period). Penelope Health is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.