Forward Deployed Engineer - DV
Summary
Principal-level forward deployed engineer (contract, £800/day outside IR35) with active DV clearance to build AI/LLM capability for defence customers in London — taking products from scratch to live, deploying on GCP, Kubernetes/OpenShift or air-gapped on-prem, and leading security accreditation. Stack: TypeScript, Node.js, React, PostgreSQL.
Principal Forward Deployed Engineer | Active DV | London | £800 p/d Outside IR35
I'm looking for a senior, hands-on engineer with real defence delivery experience to build AI capability from scratch and see it all the way through to the customer.
What you'll be doing
- Taking new products from a blank page to live, and owning them the whole way
- Getting a cloud-native product running wherever the customer needs it: on-prem, OpenShift, Kubernetes, VMs or bare metal
- Delivering AI and LLM capability, including GPU workloads and models served on-prem
- Shipping into secure and air-gapped networks through controlled release processes
- Leading the security side: threat modelling, building the evidence and getting systems accredited
- Writing the docs and test plans, and being the go-to technical person for senior stakeholders
Tech you'll use
TypeScript, Node.js, Fastify, Next.js and React, with Prisma and PostgreSQL, on GCP (Cloud Run, Cloud Tasks), plus solid security and IAM experience.
You'll need
- Active DV clearance
- A track record of delivering into defence
- Principal-level experience while still writing code
- To be London-based or able to get on site
Bonus points for
Accreditation, OpenShift or GPU model serving.
If that sounds like you, apply with your CV