As a Lead - Forward Deployed Engineer at realfast.ai with 7–10 years of software engineering experience, you will lead the end-to-end lifecycle of high-complexity projects. A battle-tested engineer who can code like hell, understands what makes businesses tick, and can elevate an entire team while doing it.

You'll lead a team of Forward Deployed Engineers on client projects, working hand-in-hand with AI Transformation Leads to deliver software and products that help clients achieve their business goals. You'll own high-complexity projects end-to-end — driving product and technical design, navigating trade-offs, and ensuring timely delivery that upholds our standards of innovation and excellence.

This is a natural career progression from the FDE role. Like FDEs, you'll be deeply embedded in client work — but you'll also bring back learnings, patterns, and insights that have a significant impact on the platform we're building.

What You'll Do

Lead client engagements, driving delivery and raising the bar on engineering excellence
Partner with AI Transformation Leads to design and deliver solutions that achieve client business outcomes
Work directly with customers and stakeholders — including users, data scientists, and cross-functional teams — to design and implement solutions
Prioritise strategically, balancing quality, technical debt, and delivery timelines
Champion delivery excellence by boosting predictability, quality, and throughput
Deconstruct complex engineering problems and deliver robust solutions
Improve code architecture with a focus on testability and maintainability
Make smart trade-offs between beautiful code and shipping fast — we bias toward shipping
Unblock and support team members to address challenges impacting delivery
Set the standard for engineering best practices and first-principles thinking — be someone the team looks up to in terms of craft
Build AI-powered solutions, including developing, fine-tuning, and integrating LLMs to enhance products, automate tasks, and drive innovation
Feed learnings back to the platform — identify patterns, gaps, and opportunities from client work that shape the evolution of our platform
Help build the team by mentoring engineers and finding other smart people

What You'll BringExperience

7–10 years of software engineering experience
Deep expertise with a proven track record in a similar lead role
Experience building applications from scratch using object-oriented languages (e.g., Ruby, Python)
Experience solving 0-to-1 problems, identifying Product-Market Fit, and iterating with users to deliver solutions
Strong proficiency across multiple programming languages and paradigms — it doesn't matter which

Technical Skills

Exceptional grasp of software engineering principles
Comprehensive understanding of engineering systems and architecture
Hands-on across the full stack — front-end, back-end, data pipelines, and AI models
Appreciation for how businesses make money using technology as a lever

Leadership & Communication

Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to lead by example in technical and operational excellence
Experience mentoring engineers and contributing to team growth
Excellent communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences
Leadership qualities: integrity, compassionate collaboration, and thorough preparedness

Mindset

Comfortable working in a dynamic environment with ambiguity
Strong grit and drive to make an impact
Self-starter who can operate without detailed specs or extensive guidance

This role is for you if

You're a polyglot engineer who loves to create working solutions, not just write code
You're excited about building systems where AI owns concrete business outcomes
You want to take state-of-the-art research into reliable production software
You're interested in the business side of technology, not just the technical aspects
You want to lead, mentor, and grow a team of high-calibre engineers
You enjoy turning client-facing experience into platform improvements that scale

This role is NOT for you if

You want a strictly defined role with clear boundaries
You need detailed specs before you can start building anything
You need extensive guidance and structure to be productive
You're looking for a purely coding-focused position
You prefer to specialise deeply in one technical area rather than being versatile