Senior Forward Deployed AI Engineer - Vice President

Citi; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 110,000 - 165,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

27 days annual leave (plus bank)

Discretional annual bonus

Private Medical Care

Life Insurance

Employee Assistance Program

Pension Plan

Paid Parental Leave

Employee discounts

Job summary

Citi London is hiring a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer to build production-grade agent reasoning loops, MCP servers, and robust execution pipelines embedded within Line of Business squads. You will collaborate with engineers and business stakeholders to turn complex requirements into reliable AI solutions with strong safety and quality controls.

You will integrate with enterprise systems (ServiceNow, JIRA, DBaaS, Kafka, REST/gRPC services) and contribute to testing, evaluation and continuous

Qualifications

• Proficient Python development experience.
• Hands-on with LLM APIs and model integration.
• Experience building REST/gRPC APIs.
• Familiar with Docker, Git, Linux, and CI/CD.
• Understanding of prompt engineering and JSON output validation.
• Experience working in fast-paced agile squads.

Responsibilities

• Writes robust, production-quality agent reasoning logic.
• Develops MCP servers connecting AI agents to enterprise systems.
• Implements resilient error handling, automated retry mechanisms and HITL escalation triggers.
• Integrates Lakera Guardrails for prompt-injection defence and PII filtering.
• Collaborates with C12 engineers to build automated regression testbeds and evaluation harnesses.
• Advises and coaches junior developers and participates in sprint delivery and code reviews.
• Assess risk and ensure compliance with laws, rules and Citi policies.

Skills

Python

LLM APIs

REST/gRPC

Docker

Git

Linux

CI/CD

Prompt engineering

JSON validation

Vector search

Agile teams

Tools

Docker

Git

Linux

CI/CD

Job description

Benefits

• Paid Parental Leave

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 build reliable agent workflows, integrate AI with enterprise systems and ensure solutions perform securely and consistently in production.

With a strong focus on hands‑on engineering, collaboration and rapid delivery, the Factory gives you the opportunity to solve challenging technical problems, develop your expertise and contribute reusable tools and engineering practices that support AI adoption 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 Senior Forward Deployed Engineer is a hands‑on core engineering position responsible for developing agent reasoning logic, custom tool integrations and resilient execution pipelines embedded within Line of Business (LOB) squads. The overall objective of this role is to build production‑grade agent reasoning loops, custom Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and robust error‑handling mechanisms that adhere to enterprise safety and quality standards. Working closely with fellow engineers and business stakeholders, you’ll help turn complex requirements into reliable AI solutions, contributing to testing, evaluation and continuous improvement throughout the development lifecycle.

Responsibilities

• Writes robust, production‑quality agent reasoning logic, memory management and sub‑agent delegation workflows in Python.
• Develops custom Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers connecting AI agents to enterprise systems (ServiceNow, JIRA, DBaaS, Kafka, internal REST/gRPC services).
• Implements resilient error handling, automated retry mechanisms, fallback routines and Human‑in‑the‑Loop (HITL) escalation triggers.
• Integrates Lakera Guardrails for synchronous and asynchronous prompt‑injection defence, jailbreak mitigation and automated PII filtering/redaction.
• Collaborates with C12 engineers to build automated regression testbeds and integrate Agentflow Studio evaluation harnesses into deployment workflows.
• Advises and coaches junior developers, participating actively in sprint delivery and peer code reviews.
• Appropriately assesses 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 judgement regarding personal behaviour, conduct and business practices, and escalating, managing and reporting control issues with transparency.

Skills & Qualifications

• Strong software engineering experience, with professional proficiency in Python.
• Hands‑on experience working with LLM APIs (R2D2 Gateway, OpenAI, Google Vertex AI) and integrating foundation models into backend services.
• Experience with REST/gRPC API development, Docker, Git, Linux environments and CI/CD automation pipelines.
• Understanding of prompt engineering, structured JSON output validation (e.g. Pydantic) and vector search/retrieval patterns.
• Proven ability to work collaboratively in fast‑paced agile squads solving ambiguous technical problems.

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.

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.

View Citi’s EEO Policy Statement and the Know Your Rights poster.