Forward Deployed Engineer

Role

Forward Deployed Engineer

Location

Bristol HQ – Hybrid Model \& Travel across EMEA region

Salary

£80,000 - £125,000 GBP

Insight is looking for an experienced AI Forward Deployed Engineer to lead the design, delivery and scaling of high-impact AI solutions for strategic customers.

This is a senior, hands-on technical role for someone who thrives at the intersection of engineering, architecture and customer engagement. You will turn complex and often ambiguous business challenges into secure, scalable and commercially viable AI solutions, taking ownership from early discovery and prototyping through to production deployment.

You will act as a senior technical authority across customer engagements, owning solution architecture and critical technical decisions while helping multidisciplinary teams solve difficult engineering problems. This is an individual-contributor technical leadership role, with significant influence but no formal line-management responsibility.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design and delivery of complex AI engagements, owning solution architecture, deployment approach, technical risk and engineering priorities.
• Work directly with customers and senior stakeholders to translate business challenges into practical AI strategies, roadmaps and solutions.
• Design, prototype and deliver AI proofs of concept and production-grade solutions.
• Act as a subject-matter expert for forward deployed engineering, unblocking teams and resolving complex technical problems.
• Establish technical standards and implementation best practices for generative AI, agentic systems and enterprise AI deployment.
• Conduct design and code reviews while mentoring engineers and improving technical capability across the practice.
• Collaborate with Sales, Solutions Engineering, Product, Research, Architecture and Customer Success to align strategy and resolve delivery dependencies.
• Create reusable frameworks, accelerators, playbooks and solution patterns that improve the speed and consistency of AI delivery.
• Ensure solutions meet appropriate security, legal, ethical, governance and enterprise risk requirements.
• Represent the technical perspective in executive briefings, customer workshops and steering meetings.
• Explain complex AI and engineering concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Contribute customer insight and implementation learnings to the development of Insight’s AI services, offerings and go-to-market approach.

Experience Required

• Significant experience leading AI, machine learning or applied AI delivery within complex, customer-facing enterprise environments.
• Strong programming capability in languages such as Python or JavaScript.
• Experience with machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow or PyTorch.
• Hands-on experience with generative AI models, agentic systems or reinforcement learning frameworks.
• Deep knowledge of deploying machine learning models into production using platforms such as Azure or AWS, or within on-premises environments.
• Strong understanding of production engineering practices, solution architecture, security and maintainability.
• Proven experience leading senior customer engagements and influencing strategic decisions.
• The ability to communicate complex technical subjects clearly to executives and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong commercial awareness and the judgement to balance customer value, technical risk, scalability and business priorities.
• Experience creating repeatable technical frameworks, standards or operating models.
• A Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Science, AI, Machine Learning or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• A commitment to continuous learning, responsible AI and staying current with developments in AI technology, governance and market expectations.

What success looks like

You will deliver secure, scalable and high-quality AI solutions that create demonstrable customer value. Your work will strengthen technical standards, reduce delivery risk and produce reusable capabilities that can be applied across customers, industries and geographies.

Success will also be reflected in strong technical stakeholder feedback, repeat or expanded customer engagements, improved engineering capability and the consistent adoption of reusable frameworks and delivery playbooks.

Benefits

• 6% Matched pension
• Annual salary reviews
• 25 days holiday + bank holidays + 5 day buy/sell/carry over scheme
• Private Health Insurance through Vitality
• Eye care
• Electric car and cycle to work schemes
• Enhanced parental leave
• 1 month work from EMEA policy
• Clear growth and progression plans
• High street brand \& gym discounts