Forward Deployed Engineer at Blackstone& London, London Area, £Contract Rate

Blackstone& are a technical consultancy who specialise in digital transformation and complex technical deliveries. 15 years ago that meant Cloud adoption. 10 years ago it was DevOps. 5 years ago, SRE and platform engineering. We still cover all of that, but you guessed it, a lot of our work right now is AI adoption. And we mean actual AI adoption: in production, in Enterprises. Not just a vibe coded app on a local machine.

The pace and impact of each wave keeps accelerating, but we think successful adoption still comes down to two things: people and constraints. What does transformation actually look like inside the limits of an organisation, and how do we bring the people along for it?

Interested in helping us answer those questions for our customers?

WHAT YOU'LL BRING

Core Skills

• Solid back-end engineering foundations. You write code that others can read, test, and build on
• Hands-on experience with AWS Bedrock, including model invocation, knowledge base integration, and deployment patterns within AWS environments
• Experience with AWS AgentCore or equivalent agent orchestration tooling on AWS, building agents that are reliable enough for production use
• A strong grasp of how large language models actually work: their failure modes, their sensitivities, and how to engineer systems around them
• Proven experience building RAG systems end-to-end: chunking and embedding strategies, retrieval tuning, and grounding outputs in source data
• The ability to build evaluation harnesses that measure what matters: quality, consistency, regression, and real-world performance
• Context engineering instincts. You think carefully about what goes into a model's context window and why
• Prompt writing as an engineering discipline: systematic, tested, version-controlled, and repeatable
• Comfort working directly with enterprise clients in complex, regulated environments with real governance constraints

Nice to have

• Experience with production agentic systems: multi-step reasoning, tool use, memory, and safe orchestration in high-stakes settings
• Familiarity with agentic design patterns specific to AWS, including Lambda-backed tools, Step Functions integration, or Bedrock Agents
• Exposure to fine-tuning or domain adaptation of foundation models.

DAY TO DAY

Hands-On Engineering

• Architect and build AI systems on AWS Bedrock and AgentCore, covering RAG pipelines, knowledge bases, agent workflows and production APIs.
• Develop back-end integrations that connect AI capabilities to enterprise platforms securely and at scale
• Own the evaluation layer, designing and running harnesses that give the delivery team and the client confidence in every release
• Engineer prompts and context strategies that perform consistently in production, not just in testing

Working with the Team & Customer

• Partner with delivery managers and architects to shape AI solutions that map to real client outcomes, not just technical possibilities
• Engage confidently with enterprise stakeholders, translating technical decisions into language that makes sense for a regulated business environment
• Share knowledge across the Blackstone& team: documentation, architecture decisions, and lessons learned from the field.

Raising the bar

• Maintain high engineering standards across everything you produce. Testing, documentation, and code quality are not optional extras
• Bring new techniques and tools to the team when they are genuinely useful, grounded in evidence rather than novelty
• Contribute to how Blackstone& builds and delivers AI. This is a practice in growth and your experience shapes it

WHO WILL THRIVE HERE

This engagement will suit you if you:

• Treat AI engineering as a craft: rigorous, iterative, and evidence-led.Are intellectually curious about what LLMs can and cannot do, and honest about the difference.
• Can work with real autonomy in fast-moving, ambiguous delivery environments.Are clear and direct when communicating with technical and non-technical audiences alike.Have operated in enterprise or regulated environments and understand what that means in practice.Want visibility, ownership, and the chance to shape something. Not just execute tickets.

ENGAGEMENT DETAILS

This engagement is offered outside IR35, reflecting the genuine independence and expertise the role requires. Key terms:

• Rate: Competitive
• Outside IR35 - engaged as an independent contractor via your own limited company or umbrella
• Initial contract length: 6 months, with extensions expected subject to performance and project progression
• Hybrid working - a mix of remote and on-site with the client as the engagement requires
• Start date: to be agreed - we are looking to move quickly for the right person