Forward Deployed Engineer

HUG; Greater London; On-site; GBP 75,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

HUG in Shoreditch is seeking Forward Deployed Engineers to join its engineering team. You’ll sit with customers, turning messy real-world workflows into software and own the implementation from idea to production.

You’ll work across frontend, backend, data and AI layers with 3–6 years of software experience and strong Python and frontend skills, shipping real production systems.

Qualifications

• 3–6 years of software/product engineering experience.
• Strong Python experience and frontend development skills.
• Experience building and shipping production systems.
• Comfortable working directly with customers and non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship production software from week one.
• Own features end-to-end across frontend, backend, data and AI layers.
• Collaborate with customers and founders to translate needs into product.
• Operate with high autonomy and contribute to technical leadership.

Skills

Python

Frontend development

Production systems

Customer interaction

Ambiguity tolerance

Founding/early-stage

Job description

I’m working with a fast-growing, venture-backed AI startup that is hiring several Forward Deployed Engineers to join its engineering team in Shoreditch.

This is not a traditional FDE role where you spend your time configuring software or writing integrations.

You’ll sit directly with customers, understand how their teams actually work, turn messy real-world workflows into software, and own the engineering from idea → production.

You’ll be joining a ~20-person company that has raised a $4.5M seed round from top-tier investors and is already deployed inside some of the largest enterprises in its industry. The company is growing rapidly and plans to double its headcount this year.

What makes the role interesting:

• Build and ship production software from your first week
• Work directly with customers and founders
• Own features end-to-end across frontend, backend, data and AI/model layers
• Work on AI-powered workflows involving document intelligence, technical review, inspection and complex operational processes
• Huge amount of autonomy - you'll decide what to build, not just how to build it
• Genuine opportunity to grow into a technical leadership role as the team scales
• Meaningful equity in a very early-stage company

What we're looking for:

• 3–6 years of software/product engineering experience
• Strong Python experience plus frontend experience
• Experience building and shipping real production systems
• Comfortable working directly with customers and non-technical stakeholders
• Someone who enjoys ambiguity, moves quickly and can take a problem from zero → shipped product
• Strong engineering pedigree - experience at a high-quality startup, scale-up or engineering-led company is ideal
• Founding engineer, early-stage startup or Forward Deployed experience is a major plus

Shoreditch, London - predominantly 5 days/week in the office

This is a great opportunity for an engineer who wants significantly more ownership than they'd get in a traditional engineering role - and wants to be close to both the customer and the product.