Associate Director, Forward Deployed Engineering

JOB PURPOSE

The Associate Director,Forward Deployed Engineering leads a new technology capability within the Group. Reporting to the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), the role embeds with schools, campuses and corporate functions to identify operational needs, co-develop practical solutions and deliver production software that people use.

The role combines senior engineering with business partnership. It advances the Group's ambitions to be the best place to study, a great place to work, and to sustain a cradle-to-cradle relationship with alumni. Solutions should improve learner and parent journeys, reduce friction for educators and staff, and strengthen lifelong alumni engagement. The role also establishes a repeatable forward-deployed engineering model and feeds reusable capabilities into Group platforms.

RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Embed with the Business and Deliver Solutions

• Embed with school leaders, faculty, student experience teams, HR and alumni relations to understand how work happens and co-design solutions with users.
• Translate ambiguous problems into working software prototype, validate and deploy solutions when the stated need differs from operational realities or available data.
• Own the full delivery lifecycle, from requirements and design through build, integration, deployment and iteration, bringing usable versions to users early.
• Spend meaningful time with business owners and on campus while continuing to write and ship production code.
• Use AI coding agents and orchestration tools to accelerate development, with human accountability for quality, safety and outcomes.

2. Deliver Across the Three Strategic Pillars

• Best place to study: build tools that improve learner, parent and campus experiences, including personalised learning, student journeys and support from enrolment to graduation.
• Great place to work: deliver internal platforms, workflow automation and timely data that help educators and staff work effectively.
• Cradle to cradle: create systems that support alumni engagement, community, mentorship, giving and re-enrolment.

3. Lead the Forward Deployed Engineering Capability

• Define the operating model, engagement approach and quality standards for forward deployed engineering, and mentor engineers as the capability grows.
• Generalise useful solutions and lessons from individual institutions into reusable Group platforms rather than isolated implementations.
• Establish patterns, safeguards and tools for AI orchestration and agentic development so other technology teams can adopt them consistently.
• Prioritise work and make sound build-versus-buy decisions, balancing immediate business needs with long-term Group value.

4. Partner with Academic and Corporate Leaders

• Act as a trusted bridge between technology teams and academic and corporate leaders, translating needs and technical options clearly in both directions.
• Build trust, remove barriers to adoption and help leaders make informed decisions about technology.

RELATED EXPERIENCE

• Proven experience as a hands-on software engineer delivering end-to-end solutions across data, integration and application layers in modern languages and cloud environments.
• Experience working directly with non-technical stakeholders in ambiguous, evolving settings, such as forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, consulting with delivery ownership, or an equivalent founder or internal role.
• Track record of turning a loosely defined problem into a deployed, adopted product rather than stopping at a prototype.
• Experience in education, EdTech or another regulated, mission-driven sector with multiple stakeholders is advantageous.
• Experience across Southeast Asian markets and multi-campus or multi-brand organisations is advantageous.

COMPETENCIES (KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES)

• Strong end-to-end software engineering capability and a willingness to continue building and shipping production code.
• Fluent use of AI orchestration and agentic development workflows, including directing AI coding agents and combining tools and models, with sound judgment about human oversight.
• Excellent communication and influence across technical, academic and corporate stakeholders.
• Sound judgment in defining scope, setting priorities and making build-versus-buy decisions under real constraints.
• Leadership presence and the ability to set direction, mentor a small team and raise engineering standards.
• Applied experience with production AI and large language model systems, including evaluation and governance of agentic workflows, is advantageous.
• Familiarity with data privacy and student data governance is advantageous.

SUCCESS MEASURES

• First 90 days: embed with at least two business units, identify the highest-value problems across the three pillars and ship one solution used by real users.
• First year: establish a repeatable forward deployed engineering operating model, deliver several deployed solutions with measurable outcomes and feed reusable capabilities into Group platforms.
• Ongoing: assess adoption and outcomes for learner success, staff experience and alumni engagement rather than volume of output.