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Forward Deployed Engineering Lead

Orbital· AI
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Hybrid (London, UK)Full-timePosted 2mo ago

About the role

Orbital Industries is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineering Lead to build and lead the Forward Deployed Engineering function, owning its technical standards, delivery model and team. The role combines hands-on deployments with leadership and strategic engagement across customer sites to scale CurieOS deployments in industrial R&D.

Responsibilities

  • Deliver deployments hands-on, across the breadth of industrial R&D
  • Drive customer adoption so CurieOS becomes how their scientists and engineers work day-to-day
  • Deliver complex customer deployments hands-on, writing production code, designing architectures, building integrations and debugging issues across CurieOS and customer systems
  • Own the technical quality of deployments from prototype through production, including reliability, maintainability and operational performance
  • Design and build systems that connect heterogeneous software, data and physical infrastructure, from simulation campaigns and digital twins to lab instruments, test rigs and CAD/PLM systems
  • Develop reusable integration patterns that allow CurieOS to operate reliably across complex customer environments
  • Own delivery end-to-end
  • Embed with customer teams to understand ambiguous, high-value R&D problems, challenge assumptions and identify where CurieOS can deliver meaningful impact
  • Translate those problems into a technical approach, milestones and acceptance criteria, making pragmatic architecture and scope trade-offs as you learn
  • Own the engagement from initial technical discovery through implementation, production deployment and adoption
  • Set KPIs per engagement (screening throughput, design-cycle reduction, experiments avoided), measure pre/post and report outcomes to executive sponsors
  • Build and lead the team
  • Build and lead the Forward Deployed Engineering function, owning its technical standards, engineering practices and delivery model
  • Hire, develop and manage exceptional Forward Deployed Engineers across diverse scientific and engineering domains
  • Set the technical bar through code and architecture review, and act as the escalation point for the most difficult technical decisions and production issues
  • Staff engagements based on technical complexity and individual strengths, while developing engineers into increasingly independent technical leaders
  • Codify successful approaches into reusable architectures, tooling and playbooks so the team becomes more effective as it scales

Qualifications

  • Significant experience in enterprise software technical delivery or forward deployed engineering roles, you have led complex deployments and written production code alongside customers
  • Experience building a forward deployed engineering or solutions function, hiring the team, setting the standards and defining the delivery model
  • The ability to move fluidly between strategy conversations with R&D leadership and debugging sessions with engineers
  • A track record of succeeding in ambiguous, fast-moving environments where requirements evolve through direct iteration with users
  • Strong software engineering fundamentals, you still build, and your technical judgement is respected by the engineers you lead
  • A genuine interest in building software that enables breakthrough scientific and industrial applications

Skills

Required:Production-grade software engineeringDeployment leadership
Last updated Aug 27, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About Orbital

Advanced Materials for Next-Gen Data Centers

Orbital builds next-gen data center products powered by AI-discovered advanced materials—solving industry’s hardest challenges with performance breakthroughs.

Data CentersAdvanced MaterialsAI
Company profileWebsite

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