Forward Deployed Engineering - Director

Citi; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

27 days annual leave

Discretionary annual bonus

Private Medical Care & Life Insurance

Employee Assistance Program

Pension Plan

Paid Parental Leave

Employee discounts

Job summary

Citi London is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineering Director to lead a high‑performing squad embedded within Citi's Lines of Business. You will translate complex challenges into production‑ready AI agents while enforcing architectural standards and governance gates.

In this senior role, you will manage 8 senior engineers, oversee multiple agent projects, and drive integration with core banking systems, data stores, and external APIs, maintaining regulatory compliance and engineering excellence.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of technology experience in senior roles.
• 8+ years leading engineering squads in Tier‑1 banking or fintech.
• Hands‑on understanding of modern AI paradigms (LLMs, autonomous agents, embeddings).
• Proven track record delivering complex distributed systems into regulated production environments.

Responsibilities

• Direct 3–5 AI agent projects concurrently within the pod.
• Ensure compliance with enterprise architectural blueprints and governance gates.
• Lead and mentor a squad of senior engineers (C12–C14).
• Drive system integrations between autonomous agents and core banking backends.

Skills

Engineering Leadership

AI/LLMs

Distributed Systems

Stakeholder Management

Financial Services Domain

Education

Bachelor’s/University degree or equivalent

Master’s degree preferred

Tools

Enterprise Architecture

Job description

About the Team

Build the next generation of agentic AI.

The Applied AI and Agents Factory brings together ambitious engineers to turn advanced AI capabilities into production-ready solutions. Working directly with business and technology teams, you’ll tackle complex engineering challenges, build intelligent agents and take ideas from initial concept through to live deployment.

This is an opportunity to work at the cutting edge of AI engineering, developing systems that go beyond conversational tools to reason, plan and execute multi-step workflows. You’ll take ownership of the full engineering lifecycle, from agent architecture and orchestration to enterprise integration, security and observability.

With a strong focus on hands‑on engineering, collaboration and rapid delivery, the Factory gives you the opportunity to solve challenging technical problems, influence architectural decisions and help shape reusable tools and engineering standards adopted across Citi.

If you want to do more than experiment with AI — and build, deploy and scale systems that deliver real business value — this is where you can make your mark.

About the Role

The Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) Director is a senior management level position responsible for leading and directing a high-performing Forward Deployed Engineering squad embedded directly within Citi's Lines of Business. The overall objective of this role is to serve as the primary delivery executive partnering with LOB Managing Directors and CIOs to translate complex business challenges into production-ready, enterprise‑grade AI agents while enforcing architectural standards, evaluation gates, and engineering excellence.

Responsibilities

• Serves as the primary delivery partner to Line of Business Managing Directors, CIOs, and business product heads across NYC and London hubs.
• Directs sprint planning, resource allocation, technical architecture, and rapid delivery for 3–5 concurrent AI agent projects within the pod.
• Ensures all agentic software built by the pod strictly adheres to enterprise architectural blueprints, Agentflow evaluation gates, and Lakera Guardrails.
• Manages, mentors, and coaches an embedded squad of 8 senior Forward Deployed Engineers (C12–C14), fostering a high‑velocity culture of technical rigor, customer empathy, and rapid prototyping.
• Drives the design and implementation of system integrations between autonomous agents and core banking backends, databases, and third‑party APIs.
• Appropriately assess risk when business decisions are made, demonstrating particular consideration for the firm's reputation and safeguarding Citigroup, its clients and assets, by driving compliance with applicable laws, rules and regulations, adhering to Policy, applying sound ethical judgment regarding personal behavior, conduct and business practices, and escalating, managing and reporting control issues with transparency, as well as effectively supervise the activity of others and create accountability with those who fail to maintain these standards.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of relevant technology experience, with 8+ years leading engineering squads in Tier‑1 banking, top‑tier tech, or fintech environments.
• Hands‑on technical understanding of modern AI paradigms, including Large Language Models (LLMs), autonomous agents, embeddings, vector search, and Model Context Protocol (MCP).
• Proven track record of managing high‑bandwidth client relationships and delivering complex distributed software systems into regulated production environments.
• Demonstrated ability to attract, recruit, develop, and retain elite senior engineering talent.
• Strong working knowledge of financial products, capital markets, wealth management, or enterprise banking operations.

Education

• Bachelor’s/University degree or equivalent experience; Master’s degree preferred.

What We’ll Provide You

This is a unique role that will put you in the position to be part of a new venture and actively drive change. Every day there will be new challenges that will help you develop new skills that can drive your career.

By joining Citi London, you will not only be part of a business casual workplace with a hybrid working model (up to 2 days working at home per week), but also receive a competitive base salary (which is annually reviewed), and enjoy a whole host of additional benefits such as:

• 27 days annual leave (plus bank holidays)
• A discretional annual performance related bonus
• Private Medical Care & Life Insurance
• Employee Assistance Program
• Pension Plan
• Paid Parental Leave
• Special discounts for employees, family, and friends

Visit ourGlobal Benefitspage to learn more. (opens in new window)

Alongside these benefits Citi is committed to ensuring our workplace is where everyone feels comfortable coming to work as their whole self, every day. We want the best talent around the world to be energized to join us, motivated to stay and empowered to thrive.

Job Family Group

Technology

Job Family

Applications Development

Time Type

Full time

Most Relevant Skills

Please see the requirements listed above.

Other Relevant Skills

For complementary skills, please see above and/or contact the recruiter.

Citi is an equal opportunity employer, and qualified candidates will receive consideration without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other characteristic protected by law.

If you are a person with a disability and need a reasonable accommodation to use our search tools and/or apply for a career opportunity review Accessibility at Citi.

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