Frontier AI Engineer (Contract) — Lead Early Client Tech

hedgehog lab; City of Edinburgh; Hybrid; GBP 27,000 - 46,000; Full time

Job summary

Hedgehog Lab in the UK is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer on a three-month contract (Outside IR35) to lead early-stage client engagements near Edinburgh and other major cities. You’ll be the first engineer on a new engagement, working hands-on with clients to define what’s possible and building a proof that a delivery team can scale.

The role involves high levels of client contact, architecture thinking, and practical delivery using AI agents, TypeScript or Python, and frameworks like NestJS

Qualifications

• Real experience using AI agents to build production software.
• Track record of breaking down ill-defined problems and shipping useful solutions.
• Strong TypeScript or Python across the full stack, with NestJS or FastAPI.
• Experience working with and presenting to clients directly.
• Clear written communication, ADRs and docs others rely on.
• Consulting, professional services or forward-deployed experience.
• Practical approach to architecture, sized to POC, pilot or production.

Responsibilities

• Turn the client's goals into a solution architecture and technology choices.
• Build proofs of concept that validate the design and hand off cleanly.
• Define the agentic 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 the client's engineers can own.
• Producing the architectural decision records.

Skills

AI agents

TypeScript

Python

NestJS

FastAPI

Client-facing

Documentation

Job description

Hedgehog Lab in the UK is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer on a three-month contract (Outside IR35) to lead early-stage client engagements near Edinburgh and other major cities. You’ll be the first engineer on a new engagement, working hands-on with clients to define what’s possible and building a proof that a delivery team can scale.

The role involves high levels of client contact, architecture thinking, and practical delivery using AI agents, TypeScript or Python, and frameworks like NestJS