Open roleExternal
Forward-Deployed Engineer
- london, england, United Kingdom
- Job type not listed
- £70 - £110 Per Hour
Job Description
- Embed with operations teams and internal stakeholders, typically for a few months at a time, to understand complex freight and supply-chain workflows.
- Translate loosely defined business problems into clear technical solutions, deciding when to extend existing functionality and when to build new.
- Turn manual, spreadsheet and inbox-based decisions into platform logic that can be automated and, over time, increasingly handled by AI.
- Build and deploy prototypes, automations and production-ready features, integrating with internal Zencargo services, carrier platforms and third-party APIs.
- Use AI and modern development tools both to accelerate delivery and as a core part of the solutions you build.
- Work with structured and unstructured data, including emails, documents, purchase orders, shipment data and operational events.
- Test and measure solutions against real workflows and user feedback, looking for reduced manual effort, better accuracy, faster processing and a smoother-running business.
- Identify patterns across problems and help convert them into reusable platform functionality.
- Collaborate closely with Product, Design and core Engineering, and with our Data and Infrastructure teams who will support your builds, while retaining ownership of delivery.
- Communicate technical decisions, limitations and trade-offs clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders, up to executive level.
- Maintain appropriate standards for security, reliability, data protection and maintainability, and support solutions through implementation and early adoptions
Requirements
- Strong professional software engineering experience across the full lifecycle, comfortable taking a problem from discovery through to independently building, deploying and running it in production.
- Strong skills in at least one modern programming language, such as TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Java, Kotlin or C#. Some familiarity with Kotlin or Python, our primary languages, is valued but not essential.
- Experience building and consuming APIs, webhooks and system integrations.
- Experience working with databases, data models and event-driven workflows.
- Fluent use of AI-assisted development tools as a core part of how you build. This is essential to the role.
- Strong product judgement: understands unfamiliar business processes quickly, embeds with a team to distil what matters, and separates the immediate user request from the underlying problem.
- Comfortable working with ambiguity and making sensible decisions without waiting for perfect requirements, with a bias toward action, experimentation and iterative delivery.
- Confidence working directly with operational users and senior stakeholders, collaborating across Product, Design, Engineering and our Data and Infrastructure teams, and explaining technical concepts in clear, practical language.
- Strong ownership, including responsibility for whether the solution achieves the intended outcome rather than only whether the code was delivered.
- Good understanding of software quality, observability, testing, security and maintainable architecture.
- Experience in freight, logistics or supply chain, or in another B2B SaaS or operational technology environment is a plus.
- Experience building workflow automation or orchestration, for example with tools such as n8n is a plus.
- Experience with large language model applications and unstructured-data problems such as document extraction or email classification is a plus.
- Experience integrating with ERP, transport-management, warehouse-management or internal operational systems is a plus.
- Experience in a solutions engineering, implementation, internal-tools or forward-deployed role, including taking bespoke solutions and turning them into product is a plus.
- Familiarity with cloud infrastructure, Terraform, CI/CD and production support, ideally in an early-stage or high-growth environment is a plus.
Core Competencies
Demonstrates strong software engineering skills across the full lifecycle, with a focus on building and deploying solutions that integrate with APIs and leverage AI-assisted development tools. Capable of collaborating with cross-functional teams and communicating technical concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Highest-signal resume keywords
- Software Engineering Experience
- API Development and Integration
- AI-Assisted Development Tools
- Freight and Supply Chain Experience
- Workflow Automation and Orchestration
ATS Optimization Keywords
Hard Skills
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- Python
- Java
- Kotlin
- API Development
- Database Management
- Event-Driven Workflows
- Software Quality Assurance
- Testing and Observability
Soft Skills
- Strong Product Judgement
- Collaboration
- Communication
- Ownership
- Comfort with Ambiguity
Industry Keywords
- Freight
- Logistics
- Supply Chain
- B2B SaaS
- Operational Technology
Tools & Technologies
- N8n
- Cloud Infrastructure
- Terraform
- CI/CD
- ERP Systems


