Principal Forward Deployed Engineer
Key Skills for This Role
Full Job Posting
Build and deliver, hands on
Design, build, and productionise bespoke, higher-complexity AI solutions yourself, taking the hardest and least-defined engagements personally.
Own the architecture and design decisions for the team’s solutions, keeping them secure, scalable, and aligned to the enterprise core stack.
Take solutions through evaluation, observability, and our AI governance checkpoints, and keep them healthy afterwards.
Own the roadmap and the technology choices
Form part of the AI Technical Leadership Team, and build an AI Technology roadmap that lines up with the JHI strategic roadmap.
Work across the AI technology remits — AI Platforms, AI Architecture, AI Engineering, and AI Governance Implementation — owning the Forward Deployed Engineering deliverables and keeping them aligned to enterprise architecture.
Contribute to AI technology strategy, standards, and buy-versus-build, and to the investment recommendations and backlog that follow.
Review new models, tools, and vendors and determine their feasibility here, weighing cost, licensing, security, supportability, and vendor viability alongside capability, and documenting the recommendation — including the recommendation not to adopt.
Embed with the business and build investment capability
Sit with business users and hold the relationship senior enough that the team is invited into problems early rather than handed finished requirements.
Partner with the AI Enablement Partners on escalated demand, and set realistic expectations with senior stakeholders.
Build advanced investment capability on Nexus, our agentic workspace, taking models and signals from one desk into a supported, firm-wide capability, and lead the build-out of citizen developer workflows through to production.
Expose data and capability through Accio, our centralised MCP server, and as skills, tools, and connectors on Nexus, building reusable components rather than one-off integrations.
Co-build enterprise core-stack deliverables with Percepta and AI Engineering, and represent Forward Deployed Engineering in architecture and design authority forums.
What to expect when you join our firm
Hybrid working and reasonable accommodations
Generous Holiday policies
Excellent Health and Wellbeing benefits including corporate membership to Wellhub
Paid volunteer time to step away from your desk and into the community
Support to grow through professional development courses, tuition/qualification reimbursement and more
Maternal/paternal leave benefits and family services
All employee events including networking opportunities and social activities
Lunch allowance for use within our subsidized onsite canteen
Must have skills
At minimum eight years in technical, business-facing engineering roles — forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, consulting-side software engineering, or engineering embedded in a business unit — including time as the most senior engineer on the work. Former technical founders are encouraged to apply.
Experience leading engineers as a line manager, tech lead, or founder. You need not have run a large team, but you must have been accountable for other people’s delivery.
Strong Python and SQL, and a track record of shipping production applications, with hands-on delivery recent enough to still be real.
Production experience with LLMs — prompt and context engineering, agent development, evaluation, deployment at scale — including agentic capability such as MCP servers, tools, or connectors.
Experience building data pipelines from APIs and enterprise systems, and working knowledge of a major cloud, ideally Azure, with CI/CD, containers, and infrastructure as code.
Experience owning a technical roadmap, and judgement on technology selection — you can evaluate a new tool, model, or vendor, test it properly, and defend the recommendation.
Excellent stakeholder skills, credibility with senior audiences, and the ability to influence without direct authority.
High agency, genuine interest in the business problem, and willingness to move from building towards leading as the team grows.
Experience in a regulated environment where governance, compliance, and data sensitivity shape how solutions are built.
Nice to have skills
Experience standing up a new engineering team or function from scratch, including hiring and defining how it works.
Asset management or financial services domain knowledge, particularly the investment process, front office workflows, or fixed income.
Quantitative investment concepts such as fair value, relative value, signal generation, or portfolio construction.
Snowflake, Microsoft Fabric / OneLake, Azure AI Foundry, model gateways, or AI observability in production.
Vendor selection, commercial negotiation, or licensing at enterprise scale, or contributing to architecture and technology governance forums.
Supervisory responsibilities
Yes. This role line-manages Forward Deployed Engineers. There may be no direct reports on day one; the team is expected to be built out under this role, with line-management responsibility growing accordingly. Until then it carries technical leadership and delivery accountability for Forward Deployed Engineering.
Potential for growth
Mentoring
Leadership development programs
Regular training
Career development services
Continuing education courses
At Janus Henderson Investors we’re committed to an inclusive and supportive environment. We believe diversity improves results and we welcome applications from candidates from all backgrounds. Don’t worry if you don’t think you tick every box, we still want to hear from you! We understand everyone has different commitments and while we can’t accommodate every flexible working request, we’re happy to be asked about work flexibility and our hybrid working environment. If you need any reasonable accommodations during our recruitment process, please get in touch and let us know at [email protected]
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Annual Bonus Opportunity: Position may be eligible to receive an annual discretionary bonus award from the profit pool. The profit pool is funded based on Company profits. Individual bonuses are determined based on Company, department, team and individual performance.
Benefits: Janus Henderson is committed to offering a comprehensive total rewards package to eligible employees that includes; competitive compensation, pension/retirement plans, and various health, wellbeing and lifestyle benefits. To learn more about our offerings please visit the Why Join Us section on the career page here .
Janus Henderson Investors is an equal opportunity employer . All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status. All applications are subject to background checks.
Janus Henderson (including its subsidiaries) will not maintain existing or sponsor new industry registrations or licenses where not supported by an employee’s job functions (as determined by Janus Henderson at its sole discretion).
You should be willing to adhere to the provisions of our Investment Advisory Code of Ethics related to personal securities activities and other disclosure and certification requirements, including past political contributions and political activities. Applicants’ past political contributions or activity may impact applicants’ eligibility for this position.
You will be expected to understand the regulatory obligations of the firm, and abide by the regulated entity requirements and JHI policies applicable for your role.
About Janus Henderson
Private global asset manager helping institutional and individual clients invest across equities, fixed income, multi-asset and alternatives.
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