Forward Deployed Engineer

Forward Deployed Engineer

Full-Time 70000 - 90000 £ / year (est.) No working from home possible
Accenture UK & Ireland

At a Glance

  • Tasks: Drive AI transformation and deployment in client enterprises, ensuring measurable business value.
  • Company: Accenture, a global leader in professional services with a focus on innovation and inclusion.
  • Benefits: Competitive salary, 25 days vacation, private medical insurance, and extra leave for charity work.
  • Other info: Join a dynamic team and define the future of AI deployment at scale.
  • Why this job: Shape the future of AI in real-world environments and make a significant impact.
  • Qualifications: Experience in cloud-native systems and AI platforms, with strong leadership skills.

The predicted salary is between 70000 - 90000 £ per year.

Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services in strategy and consulting, interactive, technology and operations, with digital capabilities across all of these services. With our thought leadership and culture of innovation, we apply industry expertise, diverse skills and next‑generation technology to each business challenge. We believe in inclusion and diversity and supporting the whole person. Our core values comprise of Stewardship, Best People, Client Value Creation, One Global Network, Respect for the Individual and Integrity.

This is not a consulting role. It is not a project delivery role. It is not a research position. A Forward Deployed AI Engineer is a production engineer who works embedded inside a client's enterprise, shoulder to shoulder with their teams, to make complex AI platforms work in real, messy organizational environments. You own outcomes: time‑to‑value, adoption, reliability, and scalability. Not delivery milestones. Outcomes.

The market is beginning to understand what leading technology companies have demonstrated: AI products fail not because the models are weak but because deployment is broken. The gap between a successful AI pilot and an AI capability that scales is bridged by engineers who can translate platform capability into measurable business value inside a real enterprise environment. That is this role. Forward Deployed AI Engineers form the execution spine of our Reinvention Deployment Engineering pods. We are building the largest FDE capability in the services industry. The engineers who join at this stage will define what the role looks like at scale and will have access to the hardest enterprise AI problems in the market across every industry.

Key Responsibilities
  • Own account‑level AI transformation across the client enterprise — from platform selection and architecture through to enterprise‑wide adoption and reinvention at scale.
  • Hold full accountability for deployment outcomes at account level: time‑to‑value, reliability, adoption, and ROI — directly reported to client executive leadership.
  • Drive ambiguity to resolution at account scale: translate executive‑level strategic intent into production AI systems operating across the enterprise.
  • Define enterprise AI architecture standards and governance frameworks across the client organisation, spanning identity, data, security, multi‑platform integration, and AI lifecycle management.
  • Own the relationship with client CTO, CFO, and CISO: shape AI investment strategy, board‑level narrative, and multi‑year reinvention roadmap.
  • Codify reusable patterns and playbooks that define what enterprise AI reinvention looks like — assets that scale across markets, industries, and the FDE practice globally.
  • Lead executive workshops, board‑level engagements, and cross‑practice architecture reviews that shape the client’s AI reinvention trajectory.
  • Define the FDE practice model: engineering standards, deployment playbooks, talent development frameworks, and the capability architecture that the practice is built on.
What’s In It For You

At Accenture in addition to a competitive basic salary, you will also have an extensive benefits package which includes up to 25 days vacation per year, private medical insurance and 3 extra days leave per year for charitable work of your choice. Flexibility and mobility are required to deliver this role as there will be requirements to spend time onsite with our clients and partners to enable delivery of the outstanding services we are known for.

Basic Qualifications
  • Engineering experience with cloud‑native systems (APIs, microservices, containerization, serverless).
  • Deep expertise in designing and deploying agentic solutions (agents, orchestration, context engineering, RAG, workflows) in production environments.
  • Experience with AI platforms — OpenAI, Claude, Vertex AI, plus open‑source models, including building abstraction layers to manage multi‑provider pipelines.
  • Experience leading software engineering teams: overseeing delivery, allocating resources across workstreams, and owning the professional development of direct reports.
  • Demonstrated end‑to‑end delivery ownership in a client‑embedded environment; internal projects, vendor labs, or team‑only deployments do not qualify.
  • Proven ability to articulate business value: can quantify the impact of deployments in terms a CFO would recognize and act on.
  • Experience presenting to and building trust with senior client stakeholders, CTO, CFO, or CISO level.
  • Non‑linear profiles are expected and welcomed, assessment is based on demonstrated deployment experience and outcome ownership, not CV pattern matching.
Accenture UK & Ireland

Contact Details:

Accenture UK & Ireland Recruitment Team

We think you need these skills to ace Forward Deployed Engineer

Cloud-Native Systems
APIs
Microservices
Containerization
Serverless Architecture
AI Platforms (OpenAI, Claude, Vertex AI)
Agentic Solutions Design and Deployment