Principal - Forward Deployed Engineer

GlaxoSmithKline plc; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

GlaxoSmithKline plc is seeking a senior technical leader for Enterprise AI, leading Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) across a defined portfolio. You will set AI-native development standards, drive architecture governance, and own delivery outcomes while mentoring Staff and Senior FDEs in high-impact engagements.

You will stay hands-on at the frontier of AI-augmented engineering, partner with senior leaders, and influence vendor tooling and enterprise platform alignment to scale prototypes into

Qualifications

• Senior technical leader with hands-on AI engineering experience.
• Experience delivering enterprise-grade AI solutions at scale.
• Strong understanding of architecture standards and governance.

Responsibilities

• Define enterprise-wide AI development standards and reference architectures.
• Lead senior FDEs and cross-functional teams in complex AI engagements.
• Own delivery outcomes for a portfolio of strategic business units.
• Mentor engineers and shape the technical career path within FDE.
• Collaborate with Enterprise Architecture, Cyber Security, and Data platforms.

Skills

AI architecture

MLOps

Data science

Governance

Leadership

Tools

Agent frameworks

DevOps

Job description

Business Introduction

GSK remains committed to achieving bold commercial ambitions for the future. By 2031, we aim to deliver £40 billion in annual sales, leveraging our existing strong performance momentum to significantly increase our positive impact on the health of billions of patients globally.

Our Ahead Together strategy is centered on early intervention to prevent and alter the course of disease, thereby protecting people and supporting healthcare systems. Our diverse portfolio consists of vaccines, specialty medicines, and general medicines. Through continuous innovation and a dedicated focus on scientific and technical excellence, we strive to develop and launch new, groundbreaking treatments that address critical health challenges.

Position Summary

GSK's Enterprise AI team builds AI solutions that prove value fast and scale to production. Forward Deployed Engineering is the front of the Enterprise AI delivery pipeline - proving AI ideas with the business through PoCs, PoVs, MVPs, and, where appropriate, first production versions, before handing proven solutions to Solutions Engineering for scale-up - bringing to GSK a model proven by AI-native companies such as Anthropic, Palantir, and OpenAI.

You will act as the most senior technical authority in the FDE function, operating at enterprise scope with two equal mandates: setting the standards for AI-native, enterprise-level development across GSK - architecture, agentic delivery-automation workflows, delivery bot meshes, evaluation, and governance - and owning FDE delivery outcomes for a defined portfolio of strategic business units.

This is a senior technical leadership role for someone who leads through technical credibility: staying hands-on at the frontier of AI-augmented engineering, leading Staff and Senior FDEs on the most consequential engagements and shaping how AI engineering is done well beyond the FDE team. As Enterprise AI scales, the value of each engagement increasingly depends on what it leaves behind: you will set standards from real delivery experience, prove them inside the business units that matter most, and serve as the escalation point for the hardest architecture, ML, and agentic-engineering decisions. Humans steer, agents execute.

Responsibilities

This role will provide YOU the opportunity to lead key activities to progress YOUR career. These responsibilities include some of the following:

• Define and own enterprise-level development standards for AI solutions across GSK - reference architectures, agentic delivery-automation workflows, delivery bot meshes, evaluation frameworks, and handoff hygiene - adopted by FDE, Solutions Engineering, and Operations Engineering alike.
• Set the enterprise technical direction for AI-native engineering, going well beyond vibe coding to establish how agentic workflows and delivery bot meshes are designed, secured, monitored, and reused at scale.
• Own the enterprise pattern library and reference platform, ensuring reusable agents, prompt templates, MCP integrations, and reference architectures are good enough that teams across GSK adopt them without rework.
• Chair FDE technical design review and contribute to Enterprise AI architecture governance, approving, challenging, or redirecting high-impact technical decisions.
• Own FDE delivery for a defined portfolio of strategic business units - engagement pipeline, prioritization, quality, and outcomes from intake to clean handoff.
• Lead the most complex, precedent-setting engagements personally, staying hands-on in problem framing, architecture, and prototype delivery.
• Lead multi-FDE engagement teams, directing Staff, Senior, and Engineer-level FDEs across concurrent engagements within assigned business units.
• Partner with Director and VP-level business unit leaders, shaping their AI roadmaps, qualifying the highest-value use cases, and making and defending kill/continue decisions with multi-year business consequences.
• Act as the technical authority and escalation point for the FDE function on architecture, ML, data science, and agentic engineering.
• Mentor and grow Staff and Senior FDEs, shaping the technical career path toward Principal and raising the technical bar of the function.
• Calibrate the technical hiring bar - leading senior technical interviews and setting the standard for senior FDE hires.
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture, Data Platforms, Cyber Security, and Tech functions, aligning FDE standards with enterprise platforms so prototypes are built to scale.
• Influence vendor strategy and tooling choices, evaluating and shaping the adoption of AI models, agent frameworks, and developer tooling at enterprise scale.
• Represent GSK's AI engineering practice externally through industry forums, partner relationships, and technical publications where appropriate.
• Build governance in by design, embedding Code Orange, Responsible AI, and Accountability Report requirements into enterprise development standards so governance is part of every engag