Forward Deployed Engineer — Platform (AI) Staines-upon-Thames, England, United Kingdom Research and Development

Full-time Company Description At IFS, we're building the next generation of AI-native enterprise software, transforming how some of the world's largest organisations manage assets, operations and critical services. This is an opportunity to work at the forefront of modern AI engineering, building intelligent products that combine Large Language Models (LLMs), agentic AI and cloud-native technologies to solve complex, real-world business challenges at enterprise scale. We're looking for engineers who are passionate about building production AI systems and excited by the opportunity to shape the future of enterprise software.

Please note that this role requires demonstrable, hands-on experience designing, building and shipping production AI applications. Candidates whose AI experience is limited to using tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor or GitHub Copilot to assist software development, without demonstrable experience building AI-powered products or systems, will not meet the requirements for this role.

IFS is a billion-dollar revenue company with 7000+ employees on all continents. We deliver award-winning enterprise software solutions through the use of embedded digital innovation and a single cloud-based platform to help businesses be their best when it really matters–at the Moment of Service™. At IFS, we're flexible, we're innovative, and we're focused not only on how we can engage with our customers, but on how we can make a real change and have a worldwide impact. We help solve some of society's greatest challenges, fostering a better future through our agility, collaboration, and trust. We celebrate diversity and accept that there are so many different perspectives in this world. As a truly international company serving people from around the globe, we realise that our success is tantamount to the respect we have for those different points of view.

By joining our team, you will have the opportunity to be part of a global, diverse environment; you will be joining a winning team with a commitment to sustainability; and a company where we get things done so that you can make a positive impact on the world. We're looking for innovative and original thinkers to work in an environment where you can #MakeYourMoment so that we can help others make theirs. If you want to change the status quo, we'll help you make your moment. Join Team Purple. Join IFS.

Job Description As a Forward Deployed Engineer, Platform, you embed directly with product development teams and customer organisations to understand real problems, design real solutions, and own the outcome. You are a force multiplier for developer velocity and platform adoption, working at the sharp end, in the code, unblocking teams, and building the patterns and tooling that make platform adoption feel effortless. This is a high-agency role for a hands-on senior engineer who thrives in ambiguity and moves fast.

• Embed directly with product teams and customer engineering organisations to maximise developer velocity and reduce GTM timelines
• Lead technical discovery, identify the actual bottleneck, not the presenting symptom
• Along with a dedicated Architecture team, design and build production-grade solutions on the IFS Cloud platform: workflows, integrations, event-driven patterns, and data pipelines
• Identify, diagnose, and resolve platform friction points preventing teams from shipping at speed
• Champion and implement event-driven architecture patterns across product teams
• Build tooling, patterns, and reference implementations that accelerate adoption of Kairos and Nexus, reusable assets that scale your impact beyond the teams you work with directly
• Ship a working first version fast, then harden it: proper monitoring, iteration based on real usage, production quality
• Work alongside the dedicated NGA architecture team to drive the requirements for the Internal Developer Platform (IDP), the core developer experience touchpoint through which product teams will consume Kairos and Nexus
• Translate product team pain points into actionable platform feedback and roadmap input
• Work directly with customer architects, IT leads, and business stakeholders, going deep in code while communicating clearly about trade-offs
• Be the connective tissue between IFS R&D and the teams consuming the platform, your field insights shape what gets built next

Qualifications You have 5+ years of software development experience, with strong hands-on capability across the stack:

• Backend: Go
• Frontend: React (with Next.js)
• Messaging / Streaming: Apache Kafka / RedPanda
• Data: PostgreSQL

You’re comfortable operating in a cloud-native environment: Kubernetes, containers, GitOps, IaC, Software Defined Infrastructure. You have a solid understanding of event-driven and distributed systems architecture, and you apply it pragmatically in delivery contexts. You’ve built and owned production systems (not just prototypes) and know how to debug things that go wrong in the real world. You thrive in ambiguity, you can turn a fuzzy problem into a scoped, shipped system without waiting to be asked. You communicate well with non-technical stakeholders without dumbing it down. You have experience working in or alongside platform or infrastructure teams. Customer-facing technical work is in your background, you know how to build trust with engineering teams outside your own.

Additional Information We embrace flexibility and hybrid work opportunities to support diverse needs and lifestyles, while also valuing inclusive workplace experiences. By fostering a sense of community, we drive innovation, strengthen connections, and nurture belonging. Our commitment ensures you can work in a way that suits you best, while also engaging with colleagues to share ideas and build meaningful relationships.