Sr. Director, Forward Deployed Engineering
Leads US East enterprise engagements and multidisciplinary forward-deployed engineering teams delivering production AI systems. The role requires 12+ years in software engineering, applied ML, or AI systems, plus substantial leadership, enterprise delivery, and executive customer engagement experience.
About the job
Responsibilities
- Lead all US East enterprise customer engagements as the senior technical and delivery executive for strategic accounts.
- Partner with Sales, Product, and Engineering leadership on customer acquisition, expansion, and long-term success.
- Build and manage forward-deployed teams of applied scientists and full-stack software engineers organized into customer-specific technical pods.
- Own end-to-end delivery execution for customer deployments, ensuring reliability, rigor, and measurable business impact.
- Guide teams building production-grade, agentic AI applications for Fortune 500 enterprises.
- Establish an evals-first approach to deployments, maintaining performance, safety, and reliability standards.
- Lead senior technical conversations with customer executives.
- Support technical upsell conversations by explaining architectural tradeoffs, capabilities, and future-state possibilities.
- Hire, develop, and mentor forward-deployed leaders and individual contributors.
- Shape regional forward-deployed strategy during organizational expansion and restructuring.
Requirements
- 12+ years of experience in software engineering, applied machine learning, or AI systems, with significant leadership responsibility.
- Experience leading customer-facing technical teams delivering complex systems for large enterprise customers.
- Executive presence and credibility with senior Fortune 500 stakeholders.
- Strong technical foundation in applied machine learning or full-stack/distributed systems engineering, with fluency in the other area.
- Ability to translate ambiguous customer needs into technical solutions and delivery plans.
- Experience partnering with sales and product teams in pre-sales, expansion, and delivery contexts.
- Track record of building, scaling, and managing high-performing multidisciplinary teams.
Nice-to-haves
- Experience deploying generative AI or agentic systems in production enterprise environments.
- Consulting, forward-deployed engineering, or professional services experience for technical products.
- Experience building evaluation frameworks for ML or AI system performance.
- Regional or multi-account technical leadership experience.
Compensation and Benefits
- Base salary range: $285,200–$356,500 USD.
- Eligible compensation packages may include base salary, equity, and benefits.
- Benefits include health, dental, and vision coverage; retirement benefits; a learning and development stipend; generous paid time off; and potentially a commuter stipend.
Skills
Applied Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Full-Stack Engineering, Distributed Systems, Generative AI, Agentic AI, Machine Learning Evaluation, Software Engineering, Enterprise Deployments, Technical Leadership
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