Director, Forward Deployed Engineer

A Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) is a handson technical professional who sits close to clients and close to product/engineering teamsand within the business. The role bridges solution architecture engineering and client deliverydeploying adapting and operationalizing complex technical solutions (often AI data or platformdriven) in real client environments.

In AIenabled managed services FDEs are positioned to:

• Embed AI capabilities into client operations

• Stand up pointintime or alwayson AI services

• Customize platform services offerings at scalefor the services being engaged

• Accelerate value realization postsale
  

The individual gets deployed primarily during the onboarding process and thereafter stays engaged through the client lifecycle as needed to optimize the managed services engagement model. This sustained involvement helps accelerate time-to-value improve adoption and operational outcomes and ultimately increases client lifetime value.

The individuals need to be able to talk to CTOs CFOs CIOsor theirrepresentatives. Strong business acumen business process understanding and critical thinking skills are essential to connect technical decisions to measurable outcomes and value creation.

Responsibilities:

ClientFacing Solution Deployment

• Work directly with client stakeholders (technical and business) tooptimize current client environments and/orimplement solutions in live environments.

• Translate ambiguous business problems into deployable technical architecturesand solutions.

• Customize configure and extend platforms to meet clientspecific requirements.

• Troubleshoot production issues and optimize performance postdeployment.

Engineering & Technical Execution

• Write productionquality code scripts and integrations (Python SQL APIs cloud services).

• Build proofsofconcept and evolve them into scalable implementations.

• Integrate client systems (ERP finance data platforms cloud infrastructure).

• Work with clients to ensuresolutions meet security compliance and reliability requirements.

Product & Platform Feedback Loop

• Act as a conduit between clients and internal product/engineering teams.

• Provide structured feedback on feature gaps usability issues and scalability constraints.

• Influence product roadmap based on realworld deployment learnings.

Managed Services Lifecycle (Outsourced & CoSourced)

Embed throughout transition-to-run and steady-state operations to optimize delivery accelerate time-to-value and drive measurable outcomes (adoption reliability cost-to-serve)ultimately increasing client lifetime value.

• Own transition-to-run (handoff stabilization) with defined hypercare window and exit criteria (SLO attainment runbooks complete monitoring/alerting live knowledge transfer signed off).

• Operate an ongoing change/enhancement intake: shape requests into deployable backlog items (sizing dependencies risk/impact) and coordinate release readiness with delivery teams.

• Work with Service Integration to identify Continuous Service Improvement (CSI) items to maintain a recurring optimization plan tied to outcomes (automation opportunities defect reduction performance improvements cost-to-serve reduction).

• Support renewal and expansion motions with an executive-ready technical narrative backed by evidence (adoption reliability automation ROI realized business value).

Outsourced solutions (RSMruns operations)

• Partner with service delivery leadership to manage service performance (SLA/OLAattainment plans incident trends problem management/root-cause analysis prevention engineering).

• Build and maintain runbooks automations and guardrails that standardize delivery and improve scalability (reduce hero-dependency).

• Continuously improve observability (dashboards alert thresholds key health metrics) to detect issues early and shorten mean time to restore.

Cosourced solutions (shared operations with client)

• Define and maintain the joint operating model (RACI integration points escalation paths change/release responsibilities) so shared delivery is predictable.

• Run enablement and knowledge transfer as an ongoing motion (playbooks office hours paired troubleshooting) to upskill client teams and sustain outcomes.

• Establish shared telemetry (dashboards and outcome metrics) so both sides manage performance adoption and continuous improvement with the same facts.

Governance & client lifecycle engagement

• Participate in onboarding checkpoints monthly service reviews and QBRs to align technical roadmap and operational performance to business outcomes.

• Own or maintain key technical artifacts as a single source of truth (architecture decisions integration maps dependency register operational risk log entries).

• Provide early risk/health signals and mitigation plans ahead of renewals to protect and grow client lifetime value.

CrossFunctional Collaboration

• Partner with solution architects data scientists service ownersand delivery leads.

• Support presales pilot phases and client transition where deep technical credibility is required.

• Document deployment patterns best practices and reusable assets.

Required Skills & Experience:

Technical

• Strong software engineering fundamentals.

• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS Azure GCP).

• Data engineering analytics or AI/ML deployment experience (common but not universal).

• APIs system integrations and automation.

• Ability to operate in partially defined fastchanging environments.

• Work with Information Security team to ensure security is not compromised and pen testing is applied as needed.

Client & Consulting

• Ability to explain complex technical concepts to nontechnical stakeholders.

• Strong problemsolving in ambiguous realworld client scenarios.

• Executiveready communication when needed; handson execution always.

• Business acumen and business process understanding to translate client objectives into workable operating models and solution requirements.

• Strong critical thinking skills to diagnose root causes evaluate tradeoffs and make sound decisions in ambiguous environments.

• Comfort traveling or embedding with client teams.