I am recruiting a team of senior Forward-Deployed Engineers for a Government AI unit (as well as additional Platform and Full Stack Engineers) that's building and scaling AI products used directly by frontline public sector teams.
This is a genuinely hands-on, end-to-end role. You'll own the full stack yourself, from database and backend through to frontend and AI/ML, and you'll work directly with real users to build things that actually get used. It's a fast-moving, sometimes ambiguous environment, and the kind of ownership you don't often get in bigger, more process-heavy organisations. This is one of 2-3 senior hires being made for the team, so there's real scope to help shape how it works.
What you'll be doing
- Building and deploying AI-native software in a live production environment
- Owning your work across the whole stack: frontend, backend, database and AI/ML
- Building predictive models, LLM-powered workflows and scheduling tools
- Working directly with operational users to understand real problems and ship real solutions
- Staying genuinely current on what's happening in AI
What we're looking for
- Proven experience building and deploying AI-native software in production
- Comfortable owning every part of the stack, not just your own specialism
- Experience building predictive models, LLM workflows or similar automation
- A track record of thriving in complex, ambiguous organisations
- Genuinely current on AI developments
- Outstanding communication skills and interpersonal skills to effectively engage with non-technical audiences
Nice to have
- Next.js, FastAPI and Postgres
- LLM observability tooling such as Langfuse
- Terraform and Azure
- An entrepreneurial or startup background
The practicalities
- Interim contract, inside IR35, with the potential to run long term
- UK government basic clearance will be required
- Rate: competitive, dependent on experience
This search is being run exclusively through Goldfern. If this sounds like you, or someone in your network, get in touch with Lester Fernando for a confidential conversation - happy to share fuller detail once we've spoken.