Director of Forward Deployed Engineering
New Today
Today thousands of leading brands and agencies use AirOps to win the battle for attention with content that both humans and agents love.
We're building the platform and profession that will empower a million marketers to become modern leaders - not spectators - as AI reshapes how brands reach their audiences.
We're backed by awesome investors, including Unusual Ventures, Wing VC, Founder Collective, XFund, Village Global, and Alt Capital, and we're building a world-class team with in-person hubs in San Francisco, New York, and Montevideo, Uruguay.
What You'll Own
We're hiring a Director of Forward Deployed Engineering to architect, launch, and scale a 10-person team of Forward-Deployed Engineers that owns the entire technical customer journey-from enterprise discovery workshops and proof-of-concepts, through implementation and professional services, to expansion. You will start as player-coach, build a global, high-leverage organization, and measure success by faster time-to-value, higher NPS/CSAT, and sustainable expansion ARR.
Responsibilities:
- Own the end-to-end technical customer journey: design and operationalize a seamless arc from discoverytechnical winproduction launchvalue realization and upsell
- Build & lead the Solutions Engineering function: hire, coach, and retain a diverse team of high-caliber engineers; institute career paths, mentoring, and technical excellence rituals
- Pre-sales architecture & demos: raise win-rate by personally leading lighthouse deals, producing PoCs, and codifying repeatable demo assets and reference architectures
- Implementation & Professional Services playbooks: standardize onboarding packages and services SOWs that accelerate time-to-value while driving services margin
- Automate with AI wherever practical: leverage the AirOps platform, LLM agents, and workflow templates to replace manual steps and cut onboarding effort while improving quality
- Own customer health metrics: define and beat targets for Time-to-First-Value, NPS, CSAT, gross retention, and expansion ARR
- Voice of the customer to Product & Engineering: channel structured feedback and usage telemetry into roadmap priorities; partner on beta programs.
- Scale globally & efficiently: stand up the right mix of on-shore, near-shore, and offshore talent; evaluate partner channels for implementation capacity spikes
- Thought-leadership & field enablement. Publish solution blueprints, run enablement for AEs/CSMs, and lead enterprise customer enablement sessions (up to 20 % travel)
Your Experience:
- 8+ years in customer-facing technical roles (Solutions Engineering, Professional Services, Forward-Deployed Engineering) with 2+ years people management
- Computer Science degree or equivalent hands-on engineering background (you still read code and APIs)
- Proven record building or scaling a Solutions/Services team at a high-growth AI, SaaS, iPaaS or workflow automation company (e.g., Zapier, Make, n8n, Palantir)
- Demonstrated success running full pre- & post-sales lifecycle-not just "demo engineering."
- Strong fluency with modern AI tooling: prompt engineering, RAG patterns, vector databases, and observability of LLM workflows.
- Comfortable operating as a player-coach in seed-to-Series-B environments; you thrive on ambiguity and build process only where it adds speed.
- 8+ years of experience in customer-facing leadership roles, with a focus on SaaS or AI platforms
- Experience in pre-sales/sales engineering, preferably in a technical or AI-driven product environment
- At least 3 years of people management experience, including building and managing technical and customer facing teams
- Strong understanding of customer onboarding and implementation best practices for complex software solutions
- Track record of driving customer retention and expansion in B2B environments
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to translate customer and operational data into actionable insights
- Experience with AI techniques including prompt engineering and retrieval
- Prior startup experience a strong plus
About You
- Customer-obsessed technologist who can whiteboard architectures and negotiate SOWs.
- Builder's DNA-you prototype first, document second, perfect later.
- Bias for automation: you measure success in faster, cheaper, more delightful customer outcomes
- You inspire teams through coaching, feedback, and transparent metrics
- You spike on automating processes in ways that lead to both better customer experiences and lower costs
- You have a strategic mindset but aren't afraid to dive into operational details when needed
- You're adept at balancing customer satisfaction with business profitability and growth
- You're an excellent communicator and can interface flawlessly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
- You're fascinated with how AI can be used to transform customer experiences
- You have willingness to travel up to 2-3 weeks per quarter to meet with key customers and attend industry events
- Extreme Ownership
- Quality
- Curiosity and Play
- Make Our Customers Heroes
- Respectful Candor
- Equity in a fast-growing startup
- Competitive benefits package tailored to your location
- Flexible time off policy
- Generous parental leave
- A fun-loving and (just a bit) nerdy team that loves to move fast!
- Location:
- New York
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