Forward Deployed Engineer

Refractal; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Visa sponsorship

Relocation support

Job summary

Refractal seeks a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer to lead deployments at UK and European banks and enterprises. You’ll work with customers’ security and AI teams to run Refractal in their environments and feed learnings back to product.

You’ll demonstrate 6+ years in software engineering, strong Python and API skills, and hands-on experience with AI agents, while travelling to customer sites across the region. This role includes visa sponsorship and relocation support.

Qualifications

• 6+ years in software engineering, including customer-facing roles such as forward deployed, solutions or technical consulting.
• Strong Python, and confidence across APIs, cloud and identity.
• Hands-on experience building with LLMs and AI agents.
• Calm, clear communication with CISOs, risk leaders and engineers.
• Willingness to travel to customer sites across the UK and Europe.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical deployments from first integration to production, with clear plans, owners and success criteria.
• Integrate Refractal with customers' AI agents, copilots, models and security tooling.
• Translate customer policies and regulatory requirements into enforceable controls.
• Help managed security service providers deploy Refractal for their own clients.
• Build connectors and reference implementations, and ship fixes into the core product.

Skills

Python

APIs & Cloud

LLMs & AI agents

Security engineering

Customer-facing

Travel readiness

Tools

Cloud platforms

Job description

Visa sponsorship / work permit support is mentioned in the posting. Relocation support is mentioned in the posting.

Refractal is an AI security company building the infrastructure organisations need to defend against autonomous AI threats. 2026 has shown that generally capable intelligence is here. The challenge now is modernising security to stop AI-enabled threats, whether they come from internal agents going rogue or from attackers using AI to become more dangerous.

Refractal was founded on cybersecurity and AI expertise from MIT, Microsoft, NASA and the U.S. Navy. Our product lets organisations detect AI-enabled threats at low cost without sacrificing detection quality. We take a practical approach to AI risk, combining proven cybersecurity methods with frontier AI security research.

Today, we work with governments and organisations that can't afford to get security wrong. We're backed by leading deep-tech and cybersecurity investors and are growing the team to deliver on this mission.

As a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer, you'll lead Refractal deployments at UK and European banks, insurers and enterprises. You'll work inside customers' security, risk and AI teams to get Refractal running in their environments, and feed what you learn back into the product.

• Lead technical deployments from first integration to production, with clear plans, owners and success criteria.
• Integrate Refractal with customers' AI agents, copilots, models and security tooling.
• Translate customer policies and regulatory requirements into enforceable controls.
• Help managed security service providers deploy Refractal for their own clients.
• Build connectors and reference implementations, and ship fixes into the core product.

Success in your first six months

• You've taken customer deployments into production that customers rely on day to day.
• Recurring deployment work has become reusable connectors, scripts and documentation.
• Product and engineering decisions reflect what you've learned in the field.
• Experience in financial services or other regulated industries.
• A background in security engineering or at a security product company.

Our values

Radical transparency. We believe the best work happens when everyone feels able to give and receive honest, constructive feedback.

Public service. We see AI security as a form of public service. Getting the AI transition right means putting the right infrastructure in place to manage the threats that come with it, and our work helps protect the institutions and services society depends on.

Fail fast. We test ideas early, seek feedback and learn quickly. We experiment rapidly and change course when something isn't working, without compromising on security.

Pragmatism, not dogmatism. We choose approaches based on how well they solve the problem. That means combining established cybersecurity methods with frontier AI research, questioning our assumptions, and changing our minds when the evidence changes.

• 6+ years in software engineering, including 2+ in customer-facing roles such as forward deployed, solutions or technical consulting.
• Strong Python, and confidence across APIs, cloud and identity.
• Hands-on experience building with LLMs and AI agents.
• Calm, clear communication with CISOs, risk leaders and engineers.
• Willingness to travel to customer sites across the UK and Europe.
• Competitive equity to share in Refractal's growth