Be one of the first engineers on new client projects

You'll work with clients at the start of a project, figuring out what's possible and building the first version a delivery team can scale from.

If you want more time with clients and more say in how things get built, this could be for you.

What's in it for you

You'll be in front of clients from your first week, so you'll see the effect of your decisions.

You'll work across sectors, from healthcare and commerce to media and education.

You'll learn to build with AI agents. We use AI from the first days of a project, and you'll pair with engineers who've been doing it for a while.

You'll be matched to projects on your skills, so you won't be put on something just because you're free.

Who you'll be doing it for

hedgehog lab is a digital product consultancy with 20 years behind us. We build apps, websites and AI platforms for public and private sector clients in health tech, retail and financial services.

Our project teams are 5 to 15 people, made up of agentic engineers, software engineers, QA and designers.

We're a certified B Corp and Great Place to Work certified, with around 100 people across the UK and Europe.

What you'll be doing

• Working with clients to understand their goals and break down what needs building

• Building proofs of concept and first versions on AWS that hand over cleanly to a delivery team

• Contributing to architecture and technology choices, and writing them up as decision records

• Helping shape the test approach and code review on your projects

• Pairing with engineers on real work, including client teams

• Supporting pitches and estimates for new work

What comes with the role

• 28 days holiday plus bank holidays

• 5 Impact Days for learning, innovation or volunteering

• 2 wellbeing days and a wellbeing budget

• Learning budget plus time for training and conferences

• Enhanced sick pay and parental leave

• Free counselling, Cycle to Work and a company laptop

Where you'll work

There are no set office days, but we value time together and with clients.

You'll come into our Leeds or Manchester office, or a client site, for important meetings, workshops and key moments, so you'll need to be within easy reach of one of them.

What you'll need

Talking to clients and explaining your thinking is a big part of the job. If you'd rather keep your head down and code, this one isn't for you.

• Commercial experience in TypeScript or Python, comfortable across the full stack, with frameworks such as NestJS or FastAPI

• Experience building and deploying on a cloud platform, ideally AWS

• Experience breaking down a vague problem and shipping something that works

• Confidence speaking to clients and explaining technical decisions to people who aren't technical

• Clear writing, for decision records and docs others rely on

• You use AI coding tools day to day and want to go much further with them

Nice to have:

• Consultancy, agency or professional services experience

• Pre-sales or estimation experience

• Experience building agentic workflows

How to apply

Apply below, or get in touch if you want to talk it through first.