Head of AI Services (Lead Forward Deployed Engineer)

About the role

Engage is an AI company. We have our own AI customer engagement platform and an AI services team of forward deployed engineers who work directly with customers. We’re growing over 30% a year and scaling with new funding.

As Head of AI Services, you will lead that team. This is a player-coach role on the senior leadership team, reporting to our CEO, Phil Wedgwood, and based at our Manchester office. You will spend about half your time delivering hands on for key accounts, working with customers from discovery through to a live result. You could also be our founding FDE.

The rest of your time goes into building the function. You will set the team’s standards, make sure every project is properly scoped, plan capacity against demand, and hire and coach engineers as the business scales. You will also own professional services margin and report on it to the CEO.

You own professional services delivery, from scoping through to the outcomes customers were promised. Work with the sales lead to run a clean handoff from sales to delivery, and bring what the team learns back into the leadership team and the platform roadmap.

What you’ll be doing

• Set and own delivery standards for professional services.
• Lead scoping, so every project has a clear outcome, plan and effort estimate.
• Deliver directly on key accounts for about half your time, from discovery through to a live result.
• Build with LLMs, agents, RAG and evaluation on our platform.
• Integrate with customer systems, APIs and data.
• Turn repeated work into reusable patterns and assets for the team.
• Manage team utilisation and plan capacity against demand.
• Own professional services margin and report on it to the CEO.
• Make sure customers get the outcomes they were promised, and track them.
• Run a clean handoff from sales to delivery, working with the sales lead.
• Hire, coach and grow the FDE team as the business scales.
• Bring delivery insight to the leadership team and into the platform roadmap.

What we’re looking for

• Strong hands-on engineering ability, shipping production code in Python or TypeScript.
• Real experience building with LLMs, such as RAG, agents and evaluation.
• Experience leading delivery for clients from scoping to a live result.
• Experience leading, hiring or mentoring engineers.
• Commercial sense about scope, utilisation and margin.
• The ability to explain technical choices clearly to business leaders.
• UK based and able to work from our Manchester office.

Useful experience

• A consultancy or professional services background.
• Cloud experience on Azure, AWS or GCP.
• Customer engagement, CRM, app or contact centre projects.
• Experience building a services function from an early stage.

Why Engage

You will join the leadership team of an AI company with its own AI customer engagement platform, at a point where we’re growing over 30% a year and scaling with new funding. You’ll shape how AI services are built here, and you’ll still build and ship rather than only managing. We’re UK based, with our office in Manchester.

What success looks like

First 30 days: Meet the team, key customers and the sales lead. Review current projects, scoping and delivery practice, and start hands-on work on at least one key account.

By 60 days: Agree delivery standards and a scoping template with the CEO, and set up regular reporting on utilisation, margin and customer outcomes. Agree the sales to delivery handoff with the sales lead, then agree the FDE hiring plan and start hiring.

By 90 days: Standards and reporting are in use across all projects, first FDE hires are made or in final stages, and at least one key account shows a clear customer outcome you led.

Over the first year: The FDE team is hired to plan and working to one standard. Projects are scoped well and delivered to plan, and utilisation and margin are reported and meet the targets agreed with the CEO. Customers can point to clear outcomes from our work, sales and delivery work as one team with a smooth handoff, and delivery learning is shaping the platform.