Principal Forward Deployed Engineer
Contract | Outside IR35 | London, Hybrid | DV Cleared
This is a contract role, 6 months with a view to extend, Outside IR35, with the day rate to be confirmed. It is hybrid, with 2 to 3 days a week on site in London plus travel to customer sites, requires active DV clearance, and starts ASAP.
About the Client
Morela is proud to be supporting a fast-growing, venture-backed UK AI company building sovereign AI for defence, government and other highly regulated sectors. Their core product is an AI operating system built for secure, air-gapped environments. The client's identity will be shared on introduction.
The Role
You will own the technical relationship with the client's defence and government customers, taking a GCP-native product and getting it deployed, integrated, tested and accredited in whatever environment the customer runs, from Kubernetes and OpenShift to bare metal and air-gapped networks. From the first workshop with a security authority through to acceptance and handover, it's yours. It suits a former technical founder or Principal Engineer who still writes code and is comfortable working independently with senior MOD stakeholders.
Responsibilities
- Lead technical workshops, demos and discussions with senior MOD, engineering and security stakeholders
- Own delivery end to end, from requirements and planning through deployment, troubleshooting and handover
- Adapt the platform's GCP architecture to each customer's infrastructure, including restricted and air-gapped environments
- Integrate the platform with customer data sources, APIs and systems
- Own test strategy, acceptance and the technical documentation customers and accreditors need
- Lead technical assurance, including architecture reviews, threat modelling and accreditation support
- Write production code where delivery needs it and feed field insight back to engineering
Essential Requirements
- Active DV clearance
- Has personally architected, built and scaled complex products from scratch, and is still hands-on
- Strong GCP (Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, IAM, networking, Workload Identity Federation)
- Terraform, GitLab CI/CD, Docker and container orchestration
- Deploying across Kubernetes, OpenShift, VMs, bare metal, on-premises and sovereign cloud
- Full stack: TypeScript, Node.js, React, Next.js, PostgreSQL
- Security engineering, test strategy and accreditation-grade documentation
- Confident leading technical engagements with senior stakeholders, with a pragmatic, high-ownership delivery mindset
Desirable Experience
- MOD or defence delivery, including air-gapped or classified environments
- Familiarity with MOD standards, information assurance and accreditation
- AI/LLM engineering, including agentic workflows and evaluation
- Data engineering and integration with complex customer data
- AWS or Azure, GPU workloads or on-premise model serving
Working Environment
Some work takes place in secure facilities without personal devices or internet access. You will be part of a small, senior team working at the front line of sovereign AI in defence.
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Principal Forward Deployed Engineer employer: VIQU IT
At VIQU, we pride ourselves on being an excellent employer, offering a dynamic work culture that fosters collaboration and innovation. As a Mainframe Developer in Pontefract, you'll enjoy competitive salaries, hybrid working options, and opportunities for professional growth within a supportive team environment, all while contributing to the success of cutting-edge warehouse and distribution operations.
