Principal Forward Deployed Data Scientist

Whippany, NJ (onsite) contract role for a senior, hands-on data scientist to take agentic AI from prototype to production in a regulated environment.

Responsibilities

• Take ideas from prototype to production, proving quickly with prototyping then delivering reliable, scalable, production-grade systems.
• Build agentic AI end to end: design, implement, deploy, and evolve autonomous and tool-using AI systems for internal and customer-facing use, owning the full lifecycle and outcome.
• Design agentic architectures including agent orchestration (single and multi-agent setups) and tool/function calling.
• Implement Model Context Protocol (MCP) and agent-to-agent coordination, covering planning and reasoning loops and agent memory.
• Design identity and access for agents and implement control and safety mechanisms to keep autonomous behavior trustworthy.
• Match solutions to the problem by selecting the right approach per use case (model choice, agent pattern, or architecture) instead of using a single template.
• Track new models, agentic frameworks, techniques, and tooling, prototype quickly, assess what is production-ready, and bring useful innovations into delivery with sound judgement.
• Deliver on-time production software by navigating controls, governance, and compliance expectations in a regulated environment.
• Work closely with stakeholders to shape the roadmap and translate business goals into working AI capability.
• Set delivery standards for agentic AI across the organisation, including quality, evaluation, observability, and responsible-AI practices.
• Serve as the trusted technical authority for AI delivery across the organisation.

Requirements

• Production experience building AI/LLM applications used by real teams or customers, not prototypes or demos.
• Demonstrated ability to move from fast proof of concept to hardened, scalable, maintainable production systems, with judgement for what must change between stages.
• Proven track record shipping software to production in a regulated environment with governance, risk, compliance, and audit controls (e.g., financial services or similar) while maintaining delivery pace.
• Hands-on agentic AI experience, including systems where models reason, plan, call tools, and act on users behalf; including multi-agent and agent-to-agent (A2A) coordination.
• Tool and data integration using Model Context Protocol (MCP), plus control and safety mechanisms to ensure trustworthy autonomous behavior.
• Experience with identity and access for AI, including agent authentication, delegated authority, and use of non-human/service identities with authentication, authorisation, and auditability suitable for regulated environments.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: reliable, observable, testable, maintainable systems.
• Excellent communication skills with non-technical stakeholders, able to move between business discussions and technical design.
• A forward-deployed mindset close to business and users, comfortable with ambiguity, and biased toward shipping and iterating.

Technologies

• AI
• LLM
• Agentic AI
• Model Context Protocol (MCP)

Strongly Desirable

• Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) for grounding responses in trusted organisational knowledge.
• Evaluation (evals) to define, measure, and improve quality and reliability of AI and agent behavior.
• Guardrails and safety: input/output filtering, hallucination mitigation, control over autonomous actions, and responsible-AI practices.
• Prompt and context design, memory, and other techniques for shaping reliable model and agent behavior.
• Strong judgement to choose the right approach for each problem, including selecting between different models, agent patterns, and architectures.
• Experience leading architecture across teams by setting technical direction for other engineers.
• High motivation to keep up with emerging technology, with the ability to separate production-ready capability from hype.

Nice to Have

• Experience building customer-facing AI, including safety, trust, and polish for real external interactions.
• Exposure to agent-driven and AI-generated UI, including dynamically rendered, driven, or adapted interfaces.

Leadership and Values

• Senior leaders are expected to demonstrate Barclays leadership behaviours: Listen and be authentic (L), Energise and inspire (E), Align across the enterprise (A), Develop others (D).
• All colleagues are expected to demonstrate the Barclays values: Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence, and Stewardship.
• Expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset: Empower, Challenge, and Drive.

Salary: USD 215,000 - 280,000 per year
Job type: Contract
Work location: Whippany, NJ (onsite)