Director, Forward Deployed Engineering

We do. We can’t cram it all in here, but you’ll start noticing it from the first interview.

Even our candidate experience is different. And when you get an offer from us (and accept it), you get way more than a paycheck. You get a personal BetterUp Coach, a development plan, a trained and coached manager, the most amazing team you’ve ever met (yes, each with their own personal BetterUp Coach), and most importantly, work that matters.

This makes for a remarkably focused and fulfilling work experience. Frankly, it’s not for everyone. But for people with fire in their belly, it’s a game-changing, career-defining, soul-lifting move.

If that sounds exciting—and the job description below feels like a fit—we really should start talking.

Forward Deployed Engineering is where BetterUp’s platform meets the hardest, highest-value enterprise problems. You’ll lead the team that embeds with our largest and most strategic customers—translating ambiguous, executive-level requirements into working software, fast. This is a builder-leader role: you’ll set technical direction, own delivery across marquee accounts, and grow a team that is equally comfortable in a customer’s boardroom and in the codebase.

• →

  Own technical delivery for strategic enterprise accounts. Lead FDE engagements end to end—from scoping with customer stakeholders through prototype, production rollout, and handoff to core platform teams.

• →

  Be the bridge between field and platform. Turn what you learn in the field into durable platform capability; feed real customer signal back into the roadmap.

• →

  Build and lead a high-trust team. Hire, develop, and retain forward-deployed engineers who thrive in customer-facing, high-ambiguity environments. Set the bar for technical rigor and customer judgment.

• →

  Move fast without breaking trust. Ship prototypes and integrations on aggressive timelines while maintaining security, data-governance, and enterprise-readiness standards.

• →

  Partner across the org. Work hand-in-glove with product, sales engineering, security, and platform leadership to unblock deals and de-risk delivery commitments.

• →

  Operate as a technical executive in the room. Earn credibility directly with customer engineering and executive stakeholders; represent BetterUp’s technical vision in working sessions and escalations.

   

• 12+ years in software engineering, with 4+ years leading engineering teams (manager-of-managers, or a strong senior-IC-to-lead trajectory).

• Track record delivering complex software in customer-facing or forward-deployed settings—FDE, solutions engineering, or professional services with real engineering depth.

• Strong hands-on technical foundation: UI, distributed systems, APIs and integrations, identity and provisioning and other Enterprise requirements. Cloud platforms experience (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, etc.) a strong plus.

• Demonstrated ability to operate amid ambiguity—taking vague, executive-level asks and producing working software on tight timelines.

• Excellent stakeholder skills: credible with both customer engineers and senior business leaders.

• Sound judgment on enterprise concerns: security, data governance, compliance, and scalability.

• Experience with composability / configurable-product architectures and group-level governance models.

• Background working with very large enterprise customers (Fortune 100 / regulated industries).

• Experience standing up or scaling an FDE / forward-deployed practice from early stage.

• Exposure to AI-native engineering workflows and agentic tooling.

• Shape functional AI strategy that aligns with business objectives and creates measurable competitive advantage for your teams and customers.

• Build organizational muscle for continuous AI learning by embedding experimentation into operating rhythms across FDE engagements.

• Partner with IT, Legal, and Security to establish governance frameworks that enable responsible AI scaling in enterprise contexts.

• Influence peer directors to adopt AI practices that improve cross-functional collaboration and customer outcomes.

During our interview process, you’ll have opportunities to showcase how you harness AI to learn, iterate, and amplify your impact. We encourage all candidates to share examples of how they’ve used AI tools in their work—whether it’s AI-assisted SQL generation, LLM-powered data documentation, automated anomaly detection, or other applications. We view AI fluency as a complement to craft, not a replacement for it.