Forward Deployed Engineering Lead
About The Position
Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) at Rox is where product, engineering, and customers converge. FDEs embed directly into customer environments to solve high-impact problems: integrating Rox into complex GTM stacks, shaping real-world implementations, and translating customer needs back into product direction. This is not a support function and not traditional consulting — it’s applied engineering with ownership. The FDE Lead role exists to scale this function: setting standards, leading a small but critical team, and ensuring Rox’s most strategic customers see real value fast. This is a player-coach leadership role. As FDE Lead, you will own the execution and evolution of the Forward Deployed Engineering function. You’ll lead a small team of FDEs while remaining hands-on with customers, especially in the highest-stakes engagements. You’ll partner most closely with Sales and Engineering, ensuring customer implementations are technically sound, scalable, and aligned with Rox’s long-term product strategy. The patterns you establish — how projects are scoped, how technical decisions are made, how feedback flows — will define how FDE operates as Rox grows. This role is ideal for someone with strong technical depth, experience leading complex client-facing projects, and a bias toward building durable systems rather than one-off solutions. Rox is growing quickly, and customer execution is a core competitive advantage. This role exists to ensure that as we scale, our Forward Deployed Engineering function scales with clarity, rigor, and impact — not chaos. If you’re excited about leading real engineers, solving real problems, and shaping how a critical function operates at a defining moment, this is a rare opportunity to do exactly that.
Requirements
- Experience leading technical, client-facing teams (FDE, Solutions Engineering, Consulting, or similar)
- Strong hands-on engineering background (Python, React, SQL)
- Experience leading complex technical projects end-to-end
- Comfort operating across Sales, Engineering, and Product
- Ability to translate ambiguity into execution
- Strong communication skills with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Nice To Haves
- Prior experience in consulting or forward-deployed engineering models
- Familiarity with Palantir-style or embedded engineering patterns
- Experience scaling early-stage technical teams
- Exposure to modern data stacks, analytics, or AI-driven systems
Responsibilities
- Lead a growing team of Forward Deployed Engineers
- Set technical and execution standards for customer deployments
- Establish repeatable patterns for scoping, delivery, and handoff
- Coach and mentor FDEs on both technical depth and customer execution
- Act as technical lead on complex or high-stakes customer projects
- Partner with Sales on pre- and post-sale technical strategy
- Lead deep technical discovery to uncover real customer constraints
- Ensure customer implementations are scalable, secure, and maintainable
- Work closely with Engineering to influence roadmap and product decisions
- Translate customer learnings into clear, actionable feedback
- Align with Sales on deal strategy, feasibility, and delivery timelines
- Help ensure Rox’s technical promises are grounded in reality
- Identify where custom work should become product
- Reduce friction and toil through better tooling and patterns
- Raise the technical bar across customer deployments
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
