Junior Engineer, FDE (Agentic & Eco-System)

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For more information, visit WPP.com.

Forward Deployed Engineer (Applied Research)

Location: London (UK)

About Data & Technology Solutions

WPP’s Data & Technology Solutions is the WPP’s unified global data products and technology team. We work with our agencies and clients to build data-driven solutions and technology products to power marketing transformation.

WPP Open is our AI platform for marketing

It connects marketing professionals, data, tools and AI in a single place. WPP Open is the simplest, safest and fastest way to realize the benefits of scaled AI – delivering better-informed creative ideas faster, at scale and at lower cost.

We’re endlessly curious and our team of thinkers, builders, creators and problem solvers are over 2,000 strong, across 20 markets around the world.

About WPP Media Solutions

Our proprietary, opt-in media solutions give clients access to unique advantages and cutting-edge capabilities. Through a single point of access to addressable media, we've built on premium inventory and leveraged universal customer signals. We enable cross-channel storytelling, cross-platform AI optimization, and robust business impact measurement to maximize campaign effectiveness. Further information can be found here - Our Proprietary Solutions.

About the team

Strategic Initiatives & Applied Research works at the intersection of emerging technology, client demand and WPP’s product strategy. We build production-lite solutions to test strategically important opportunities, prove their technical and commercial value, and turn successful work into reusable capabilities for Product and Engineering. Our first major programme is agentic media buying, but our remit is broader: applied AI, agent-to-agent workflows, new platform connections and other emerging opportunities to help shape the future of WPP’s products. We want generalists who are happy to move onto the next frontier problem once this one is proven.

The role

Forward Deployed Engineers are hands-on product engineers who work close to clients, publishers and the market. You will combine technical depth with commercial understanding and consultancy-style problem solving: helping to define a problem, building the solution, testing it in a real setting and translating what works into reusable technical capability. This is neither isolated prototyping nor slide-led consulting. You will be accountable from discovery through implementation, field validation and handover.

What you'll do

• Build and ship working systems fast - agentic workflows, data pipelines, interfaces and integrations. All centered on answering a commercial question, not a technical one.
• Work directly with external partners, clients, internal operational and commercial teams to translate ambiguous problems into deliverable technical outcomes.
• Build at production-lite quality: moving quickly while incorporating observability, validation, sensible testing and graceful failure rather than creating either disposable prototypes or prematurely over-engineered systems.
• Build the business case alongside the build: what it's worth, who pays for it, what it costs to scale.

What you’ll bring

• 5+ years in software engineering, data science or a related field, with a track record of getting things into real use.
• Strong Python and hands-on cloud experience
• Demonstrable experience building agentic/LLM systems - tool and structured calling orchestration, evaluation, and a realistic view of what breaks when you try to get production value out of them.
• Consultancy-style experience gained through consulting, professional services, solutions engineering, forward deployment or an internal business-transformation function.
• Strong product and commercial judgement, with the ability to communicate technical choices and business implications to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity, learning unfamiliar domains quickly and balancing speed with operational credibility.
• Willingness to travel internationally several times a year and develop a strong working knowledge of media and advertising technology.

Nice to have

• Exposure to ad tech or media: ad servers, SSPs/DSPs, programmatic, or order management systems
• Front-end or dashboarding skills for building demonstrable interfaces

We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.

WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.

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