Senior Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering

Workday • Pleasanton, CA

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) organization works across Product, Engineering, and customer execution for Agent Factory, Sana, Products, and the Developer Platform. FDE teams work directly in customer engagements to address technical challenges such as unstructured tenant data, complex configurations, and enterprise workflow edge cases. They resolve technical friction, debug setups, build lightweight integrations, and turn field insights and recurring customer issues into scalable product capabilities.

The Forward Deployed Engineering Manager leads one or more FDE pods and reports to the SVP responsible for Workday’s Data Cloud platform portfolio. The role is accountable for the operating health of the pods: assigning engineers to appropriate customer engagements, ensuring their work contributes to durable product improvements, and guiding engagements through selection, kickoff, and exit. The manager leads and develops engineers on software engineering career ladders, supports them through ambiguous customer work, and partners with Product Management, Engineering, Workday Services, AI Deployment Architects, and Account Teams. The manager also escalates issues that would distract FDEs from product-hardening work and brings field evidence into roadmap decisions.

Requirements

• At least 8 years of experience in Forward Deployed Engineering, Solutions Engineering, Technical Consulting, Software Development, or Product/Program Management in complex enterprise environments, including direct hands-on work with enterprise customers.
• At least 5 years of experience managing, leading, or coaching technical teams, through direct people management or demonstrated technical/team leadership of engineers in customer-facing or field-deployment settings.
• Technical depth to review and guide hands-on engineering work, including a solid understanding of coding and debugging (such as Python, Java, or similar), REST APIs, system architecture, and integration patterns.
• Proven experience managing multiple concurrent, complex software deployments or customer engagements, including live data troubleshooting and custom workflow integration.
• Ability to abstract generalizable product requirements from bespoke customer issues and turn pod-level patterns into roadmap input.
• Experience managing strategic relationships with senior leaders in key accounts and across internal Product, Engineering, and Services teams, including setting and resetting expectations, navigating organizational change, and rebuilding trust.
• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to translate complex technical and customer context for senior internal and customer leadership.
• Comfort with ambiguity and fast-changing requirements across Product, Engineering, and Services teams; collaborative, low-ego approach in multidisciplinary account and delivery pods.

Nice To Haves

• Applied experience with LLM-powered or agentic AI systems, such as prompt/context engineering, retrieval-augmented generation, evaluations, or agent orchestration frameworks, and a working understanding of how model behavior can lead to product and customer-facing issues.
• Working knowledge of Workday, including business processes, security and permissions, tenant configuration, integrations, and how customers implement and govern Workday.

Responsibilities

• Hire, coach, and develop a high-performing group of Forward Deployed Engineers.
• Own staffing and allocation across 2–4 pods, with approximately 10 customer projects per pod, matching FDE skills to engagement needs.
• Manage the engagement lifecycle, ensuring FDEs work on high-value projects and engagements move through selection, kickoff, and exit.
• Track and report product progress against a graduation scorecard, including live and referenceable customer counts, time to deploy or configure without FDE support, and customer and support readiness, in partnership with the PAO team.
• Partner with Workday Services leads, AI Deployment Architects, Account Teams (AE/MP/CSM), and Product Managers to ensure engagements are properly resourced and FDE time is focused on product hardening rather than broader account management.
• Ensure field telemetry, recurring friction, and configuration patterns are captured, triaged, and routed into product and engineering backlogs so fixes become standard, automated capabilities.
• Create and share playbooks, configuration patterns, and known-issue guides across pods, and hand them off to teams responsible for scaling deployments after a product graduates.
• Serve as an escalation point to keep FDEs focused on product-hardening work and translate field evidence into roadmap decisions.
• Manage strategic relationships with senior leaders in key accounts and internal Product, Engineering, and Services stakeholders; set and reset expectations, navigate organizational change, and rebuild trust when engagements encounter difficulties.

Benefits

• May be eligible for the Workday Bonus Plan or a role-specific commission/bonus.
• May be eligible for annual refresh stock grants.
• Workday describes a comprehensive benefits package, but specific benefits are not listed in the posting.
• Flexible work arrangements, including flexibility in scheduling and the opportunity for remote home-office employees to attend important in-person moments.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed