Forward Deployed Engineer

Productboard•San Francisco, CA

12d•$91,875 - $122,500•Hybrid

About The Position

Productboard is seeking an experienced Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to join their Go-To-Market team. This role is an evolution of the Sales Engineer function, designed for engineers who want to do more than just demo software. As an FDE, you will be embedded in the field, collaborating with prospects and customers to resolve real-world problems. You will then bring these insights back to influence product development. This position requires you to be the primary technical point of contact in sales cycles and to ensure customer success from initial discovery through to a live, value-generating deployment. Your responsibilities include driving discovery, architecting solutions, conducting proofs-of-concept for both the core platform and Productboard Spark (an AI agent for product managers), and bridging the gap between customer needs and future product development. This is a senior, high-visibility role crucial to Productboard's success, involving engagement at the executive level, representing the company on global stages, and serving as a key resource for both customers and internal teams. The role is ideal for individuals who want their work to directly impact revenue, customer success, and the product's future direction.

Requirements

4+ years in a Sales Engineering, Solutions Engineering, or Forward Deployed Engineering role at a B2B SaaS company.
A genuine builder's instinct — you don't just demo, you configure, integrate, and prototype live solutions in front of customers.
Hands-on experience with REST APIs, webhooks, and SaaS integration patterns; comfortable getting into the technical weeds during an evaluation.
Proven ability to drive complex, multi-stakeholder deal cycles — you can navigate technical buyers, IT, and the C-suite in the same engagement.
Strong understanding of how product, engineering, and customer success teams operate — you can speak credibly to a CPO and a Staff Engineer in the same meeting.
Exceptional communication and presentation skills; you translate complexity into clarity and make the technical feel accessible.
A product-minded perspective — you naturally ask "why does this customer need this?" and connect the answer to something bigger.
A bias for ownership — you follow through, take accountability, and don't wait to be asked.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with product management tools (Productboard, Jira Product Discovery, Aha!, etc.), AI assisted workflows, or customer feedback platforms.
Hands-on experience with Productboard Spark or similar AI product agents is a strong plus.
Experience scripting lightweight automations or integrations (Python, JavaScript) to accelerate PoC delivery.
Comfort presenting to senior audiences — panels, executive dinners, or conference stages — and representing a company's technical vision publicly.

Responsibilities

Partner with Account Executives to drive complex, multi-stakeholder deal cycles, leading deep technical discovery, uncovering pain points, and aligning Productboard's core platform and Spark's AI-first capabilities to customer business objectives.
Deliver high-impact presentations, demos, and solution briefings that articulate Productboard's differentiated value proposition and connect capabilities directly to the customer's strategic problems.
Own all technical aspects of the sales cycle, including scoping and running Proofs of Concept (PoCs) in live environments, setting up integrations, responding to RFPs, validating API and architecture fit, and identifying expansion opportunities at existing accounts.
Act as Productboard's representative in the field, synthesizing patterns from prospects and customers (e.g., recurring objections, missing capabilities, workflow gaps) into structured, actionable product intelligence.
Serve as the primary liaison between Sales, Product, and Marketing, sharing field insights that influence the roadmap, integration strategy, and positioning.
Build repeatable PoC frameworks, demo environments, and technical playbooks to scale insights across the FDE team.
Represent Productboard at industry events, conferences, and roadshows as a credible technical voice, including speaking on stage, running booth demos, and engaging prospects in conversations about AI-first product management.
Host and lead executive dinners, Product Leader roundtables, and panels globally, building relationships with CPOs, VPs of Product, and senior practitioners.
Develop and deliver thought leadership content with Marketing, such as talks, live demos, and session formats showcasing the core platform and Spark in real-world contexts.
For strategic accounts, co-build solutions with the customer to secure the technical win, designing configurations, validating integrations, and proving value in their environment, ensuring a clean handoff to the AI Success team.
For scale accounts, own activation end-to-end, configuring integrations (Jira, Salesforce, Zendesk, Azure DevOps, Slack, etc.), designing workspace structures aligned with the customer's product operating model, and driving them to initial value.
Build scalable activation assets, including guided setup flows, integration templates, and self-serve onboarding resources, to enable repeatable delivery for scale-motion.