Lead Forward Deployed Engineer

Lead Forward Deployed Engineer

Location: Pune or Bangalore, India

Employment Type: Full-time

Experience: 6 to 8 Years

Role Overview

We are looking for a Lead Forward Deployed Engineer to lead AI-driven modernization of legacy payment systems. The role involves designing target architectures, building production-ready AI solutions, and leading a cross-geography engineering team while working closely with client stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• Analyze legacy systems and use AI to extract business rules, understand code, and map data flows.
• Build semantic knowledge graphs, payment ontologies, and unified domain models.
• Design target-state architecture, microservices, APIs, and canonical data models using ISO 20022.
• Define protocol normalization, payment routing, settlement orchestration, and event-driven architectures.
• Apply AI/LLMs across software development, migration, testing, validation, and data reconciliation.
• Lead modernization initiatives, phased migration, production deployment, and post-deployment support.
• Manage and mentor engineering teams across the US and India, ensuring technical quality and AI governance.
• Act as the primary technical counterpart for client technology leaders, communicating architecture decisions, risks, and trade-offs.

Required Skills and Experience

• 6+ years of experience in software engineering or solution architecture.
• 3+ years of hands-on experience building and deploying AI/LLM solutions in production.
• Strong knowledge of LLMs, RAG, agentic workflows, prompt engineering, and AI evaluation frameworks.
• Experience with knowledge graphs, ontologies, semantic models, or graph databases such as Neo4j and RDF/OWL.
• Proven experience in legacy system modernization, business rule extraction, and phased migration.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, event-driven architecture, event sourcing, Kafka, microservices, and domain-driven design.
• Experience with AWS or other major cloud platforms.
• Proven experience leading onsite/offshore teams in client-facing engagements.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in payment networks, card processing, or payment switching platforms.
• Knowledge of ISO 8583 and ISO 20022 messaging standards.
• Experience in regulated financial services, including banking, card issuing, or payment networks.
• Experience with AI-driven test automation and synthetic test data generation.

First 90-Day Success Criteria

• Complete legacy system analysis and deliver a consolidated inventory of business rules and logic.
• Establish and baseline the payment ontology and target-state architecture with client stakeholders.
• Implement an AI-assisted delivery toolchain that measurably improves engineering productivity.