Forward Deployed Software Engineer

ABOUT US PhysicsX is a deep-tech company with roots in numerical physics and Formula One, dedicated to accelerating hardware innovation at the speed of software. We are building an AI-driven simulation software stack for engineering and manufacturing across advanced industries. By enabling high-fidelity, multi-physics simulation through AI inference across the entire engineering lifecycle, PhysicsX unlocks new levels of optimization and automation in design, manufacturing, and operations — empowering engineers to push the boundaries of possibility. Our customers include leading innovators in Aerospace & Defense, Materials, Energy, Semiconductors, and Automotive. NOTE: WE ARE CURRENTLY RECRUITING FOR MULTIPLE POSITIONS, HOWEVER PLEASE ONLY APPLY FOR THE ROLE THAT BEST ALIGNS WITH YOUR SKILLSET AND CAREER GOALS. THE ROLE Your role, first and foremost, is to help our customers solve their most important problems. As a Software Engineer, this takes the form of building and deploying applications that utilize the power of our physics AI models to enable our customers to build better, faster, and cheaper. As a member of the delivery team, you’ll work directly with customers, data scientists, and machine learning engineers to develop applications that change the way advanced engineering is done. We’re looking for someone who can grasp advanced engineering concepts across multiple industries, fundamentally understand the problems that engineers face, and build tools to solve these problems.   You'll also have the opportunity to travel to customer sites in Asia, North America, and Europe for an average of 3-4 weeks per quarter, where you'll collaborate closely with customers to build solutions on-site.   WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR Technical ability: We work across a wide range of engineering disciplines, all of which are high complexity. Someone with a track record of solving hard problems is a must, a background in Mechanical Engineering or similar is a plus. This role deals with breadth across the full stack, having a solid foundation in software engineering, API design, and deploying applications to production is desired.   Proactivity & high ownership: You’ll be responsible for driving impact for our customers, whatever that might look like. We're looking for someone who is a go-getter and is naturally inclined to find problems and solve them end-to-end. You own the responsibility to get things done and will pick up the skills and experience needed to solve novel problems quickly.   Solution-focussed:We build tools that customers need, not just the ones they want. So you must be someone who is customer-obsessed and can work alongside our customers to understand their problems and build applications that change the way they do engineering.   WHAT A DAY MIGHT LOOK LIKE Collaborate with cross-functional teams: Collaborate with data scientists and machine learning engineers to ship physics models to our customers in a way that delivers maximum value. Work with designers and front-end engineers to shape the UX in line with customer needs.   E2E application design: Work with customers to shape tools that are impactful for their teams. Construct low-lift prototypes of your ideas and ship them directly to the customer. Rapidly iterate on this experience through constant user feedback.   Backend development: Build and maintain RESTful APIs (FastAPI) and microservices in Python to serve Large Physics Models to the end users. Working with other software engineers in our platform team, deploy these applications to the cloud so they become key tools in our customer’s day-to-day workflow. We use a mixture of Helm, Kubernetes, Terraform, and AWS/Azure for provisioning and running our infrastructure.   PhysicsX development: Distill down complex solutions built across multiple use cases into fundamental components. Pitch and execute the development of features on top of our core platform offering. Drive the direction of PhysicsX to be better positioned to solve ever harder problems with our customer.   We value diversity and are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of sex, race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, disability, age, sexual orientation or gender identity. We strongly encourage individuals from groups traditionally underrepresented in tech to apply. To help make a change, we sponsor bright women from disadvantaged backgrounds through their university degrees in science and mathematics.    We collect diversity and inclusion data solely for the purpose of monitoring the effectiveness of our equal opportunities policies and ensuring compliance with UK employment and equality legislation. This information is confidential, used only in aggregate form, and will not influence the outcome of your application.

ABOUT US Harmattan AI is a next-generation defense prime building autonomous and scalable defense systems. Following the close of a $200M Series B, valuing the company at $1.4 billion, we are expanding our teams and capabilities to deliver mission-critical systems to allied forces. Our work is guided by clear values: building technologies with real-world impact, pursuing excellence in everything we do, setting ambitious goals, and taking on the hardest technical challenges. We operate in a demanding environment where rigor, ownership, and execution are expected. About the Role As a Forward Deployed Software Engineer, you own the company's software solutions in the field. You are responsible for integrating our platforms into the customer's existing technical environment, and for customising, configuring, and deploying solutions to each operational context. You are the engineer who makes the software work end-to-end where it's used — writing connector code, adapting the application to field realities, and bridging customer environments and the core product team. This role spans two complementary profiles: one leaning toward systems integration (building interfaces and connectors between systems), the other toward application customisation and deployment (configuring and iterating the application per operational context). Both are in scope; the balance depends on the specific deployment. Responsibilities * Systems Integration: Develop and implement software interfaces that connect our software to the customer's existing client systems; adapt integrations to each customer context and validate data flows end-to-end on site. * Customisation & Deployment: Configure, customise, and parameterise software for each deployment's operational context; deploy and commission on site; iterate on configuration and behaviour based on field feedback. * Release & Update Management: Support the on-premises release and update process; ensure changes to the baseline do not break deployed instances. * Troubleshooting: Debug software issues in operational settings; drive resolution on site and escalate with structured documentation. * Product Feedback Loop: Surface reusable integration and customisation needs to the core product team so durable capability lands in the baseline rather than accumulating as per-deployment forks. * Customer Interface: Work directly with customer technical teams to understand operational requirements and ensure the software delivers against them. * Documentation: Maintain rigorous records of integration architecture, configuration decisions, deployment states, and issue resolution. Candidate Requirements * 3–6 years of experience in software engineering, with demonstrated hands-on experience in both software integration (interfaces and connectors between systems) and application configuration and customisation for specific environments. * Strong software engineering foundation — comfortable owning software end-to-end: build, configure, debug, deploy. * Comfortable on Linux; deploying, configuring, and debugging software in operational settings. * Systems thinking: able to reason across an integrated system and across external interfaces, not just a single component. * Familiarity with enterprise software standards, protocols, and industry interoperability standards is a strong plus. * Understanding of network architecture, communication protocols, and data links relevant to enterprise environments. * Customer-facing maturity — comfortable working directly with customer technical teams on site. * Field temperament: autonomous in challenging environments, procedurally rigorous, strong safety mindset in mission-critical environments. * Comfortable with a high travel rate, domestic and international — significant on-site presence is core to this role. * Proficiency in English is mandatory; French and Arabic are a plus. Nice to Have * Prior forward-deployed or customer-facing software engineering experience. * Experience integrating with third-party enterprise or operational environments. We look forward to hearing how you can help shape the future of autonomous defense systems at Harmattan AI.