Frontline AI Engineer — Client-Driven, Early-Stage Delivery

Hedgehog Lab; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Hedgehog Lab is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to own early customer engagements and architect solutions that blend hands-on delivery with strong client relationships. You will lead from day one, turning goals into architecture, building PoCs and guiding teams to scalable delivery across diverse sectors.

A high-impact, client-facing role with room to shape engineering practices and code quality. You’ll work across healthcare, commerce, media and education platforms, collaborating with

Qualifications

• Real experience using AI agents to build production software.
• Ability to break down a complicated, poorly defined problem and ship something that works.
• Strong TypeScript or Python, comfortable across the full stack with frameworks such as NestJS or FastAPI.
• Experience meeting and presenting to clients directly.
• Strong written communication, especially for ADRs and docs others rely on.
• Experience in consulting, professional services or a forward-deployed role.

Responsibilities

• Turn customer goals into a solution architecture and technology choices.
• Build proofs of concept that validate your design and hand off cleanly.
• Define the agentic engineering pipeline: tooling, workflows and guardrails for AI coding agents.
• Shape the quality strategy, including test approach and code review.
• Make other engineers more capable, pairing on real work and leaving patterns client teams can own.
• Own the architectural decision records.

Skills

AI agents

Client presentations

TypeScript

Python

Consulting

Job description

Hedgehog Lab is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to own early customer engagements and architect solutions that blend hands-on delivery with strong client relationships. You will lead from day one, turning goals into architecture, building PoCs and guiding teams to scalable delivery across diverse sectors.

A high-impact, client-facing role with room to shape engineering practices and code quality. You’ll work across healthcare, commerce, media and education platforms, collaborating with