Forward Deployed Engineer

Diligent; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 85,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work environment

Comprehensive health benefits

Generous time-off policy

Diversity and inclusion initiatives

Wellness programs

Job summary

A leading provider of governance and risk solutions in Greater London seeks a hybrid engineer to quickly design and build end-to-end prototypes. This role requires collaboration with sales, confidence in executive settings, and strong technical skills in programming. Applicants should have 3-5 years of experience and a passion for innovation. The position emphasizes flexibility and offers a hybrid work environment, making it ideal for candidates who thrive on challenges and have a strong communications background.

Qualifications

• 3-5+ years of relevant work experience.
• Proficiency in programming languages and building semi-deployable solutions.
• Excellent customer-facing skills and executive presence.
• Strong communication and ability to work independently.
• Exceptional executive presence: confident, articulate, and able to hold your own with senior executives.
• Proven ability to operate independently in ambiguous, fast-changing environments.
• Strong communication skills: translate technical complexity into business value.
• Ability and interest to travel up to 25%, as needed to client sites.

Responsibilities

• Rapidly design and deliver prototypes that demonstrate value.
• Partner with sales to tailor prototypes based on customer needs.
• Represent company in executive-level meetings with confidence.
• Collaborate with various teams to shape product direction.
• Provide technical guidance during partnership discussions.
• Establish frameworks and toolkits for pre-sales efforts.
• Help establish repeatable frameworks, toolkits, and playbooks for scaling pre-sales prototyping.

Skills

Technical hacking and prototyping

Python

Java

C++

TypeScript

JavaScript

AI/LLM-based tools

Executive presence

Independent in ambiguity

Communication skills

Travel up to 25%

Tools

APIs

Data pipelines

Cloud environments

Frontend frameworks

Job description

Overview

Here’s a summary of the role: We are looking for a rare hybrid talent – someone who can hack together end-to-end prototypes at speed while also standing confidently in front of a customer’s executive team. This role sits at the intersection of engineering, product, and business development. You will be one of the first technical faces customers meet, building semi-deployable prototypes, testing product‑market fit in the wild, and representing us in high‑stakes conversations with senior stakeholders. If you’re an entrepreneurial engineer who thrives in ambiguity, loves building quickly, and wants to see the immediate impact of your work with customers, this role is for you.

Responsibilities

• Rapidly design, build, and deliver end-to-end prototypes, demos, and proofs‑of‑concept that help prospects and partners experience the art of the possible.
• Partner with sales and business development teams to identify customer needs, run discovery sessions, and tailor prototypes to demonstrate value.
• Represent the company independently in executive‑level meetings (SVP/C‑level), confidently articulating both technical and business value.
• Act as a forward‑deployed engineer – embedded in customer/partner environments, surfacing insights, validating opportunities, and feeding learnings back into the product roadmap.
• Collaborate cross‑functionally with product, engineering, and marketing to shape product direction and positioning based on real‑world engagements.
• Provide technical guidance during early partnership discussions, including APIs, integrations, cloud deployments, and lightweight AI/LLM‑driven applications.
• Help establish repeatable frameworks, toolkits, and playbooks for scaling pre‑sales prototyping efforts.

Qualifications and Essentials

• 3-5+ years of relevant, post‑college work experience.
• Strong technical hacking and prototyping ability – shown proficiency in programming languages such as Python, Java, C++, TypeScript/JavaScript, or similar. Can independently build functional, semi‑deployable solutions across modern stacks (Python/Node, APIs, data pipelines, cloud environments, front‑end frameworks, etc.).
• Comfort working with AI/LLM‑based tools, APIs, and modern developer ecosystems.
• Excellent customer‑facing skills: discovery, prospecting, business development, and partnership alignment.
• Exceptional executive presence: confident, articulate, and able to hold your own with senior executives.
• Proven ability to operate independently in ambiguous, fast‑changing environments.
• Strong communication skills: able to translate technical complexity into business value.
• Ability and interest to travel up to 25%, as needed to client sites, but flexible based on personal preferences.

Nice‑to‑Have

• Experience in technical pre‑sales, forward‑deployment, or field engineering roles.
• Background in B2B SaaS, enterprise software, or early‑stage startups.
• Comfort balancing short‑term prototyping with longer‑term scalability considerations.
• Strong storytelling skills and the ability to craft narratives around prototypes and demos.

Benefits

• Shape the earliest moments of our customer and partner relationships.
• Have direct influence on product strategy by bringing back unfiltered customer insights.
• Work on cutting‑edge technologies while owning high‑visibility projects.
• Join a team that values entrepreneurial thinking, speed, and impact.

About Us

Diligent is the AI leader in governance, risk and compliance (GRC) SaaS solutions, helping more than 1 million users and 700 000 board members to clarify risk and elevate governance. The Diligent One Platform gives practitioners, the C‑Suite and the board a consolidated view of their entire GRC practice so they can more effectively manage risk, build greater resilience and make better decisions, faster.

At Diligent, we’re building the future with people who think boldly and move fast. Whether you’re designing systems that leverage large language models or part of a team reimaging workflows with AI, you’ll help us unlock entirely new ways of working and thinking. Curiosity is in our DNA; we look for individuals willing to ask the big questions and experiment fearlessly — those who embrace change not as a challenge, but as an opportunity. The future belongs to those who keep learning, and we are building it together.

To foster strong collaboration and connection, this role will follow a hybrid work model. If you are within a commuting distance to one of our Diligent office locations, you will be expected to work onsite at least 50 % of the time.

What Diligent Offers You

• Creativity is ingrained in our culture. We are innovative collaborators by nature, thriving in exploring how things can be done differently both in our internal processes and to help our clients.
• We care about our people. Diligent offers a flexible work environment, global days of service, comprehensive health benefits, meeting‑free days, generous time‑off policy and wellness programs to name a few.
• We have teams all over the world. We may be headquartered in New York City, but we have office hubs in Washington D.C., Vancouver, London, Galway, Budapest, Munich, Bengaluru, Singapore, and Sydney.
• Diversity is important to us. Growing, maintaining and promoting a diverse team is a top priority for us. We foster and encourage diversity through our Employee Resource Groups and provide access to resources and education to support the education of our team, facilitate dialogue, and foster understanding.

Equal Opportunity & Accessibility

We are a drug‑free workplace. Diligent is proud to be an equal‑opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religious creed, sex, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, pregnancy, childbirth, physical disability, mental disability, age, military status, protected veteran status, marital status, registered domestic partner or civil union status, gender (including sex stereotyping and gender identity or expression), medical condition (including, but not limited to, cancer related or HIV/AIDS related), genetic information, or sexual orientation in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. See also Diligent’s EEO Policy and Know Your Rights. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at [e-mail].