Head of Forward Deployed Engineering

The Head of Forward Deployed Engineering will lead and scale a team of Forward Deployed Engineers, define the operating model for the function, and partner with executive leadership on enterprise strategy, product direction, and high‑impact technical initiatives. The role sits at the intersection of enterprise customers, Product, Engineering, Sales, Customer Success, and strategic initiatives, and covers discovery through production rollout and expansion for the company’s most strategic customer engagements. Responsibilities include shaping the FDE organization’s vision, building scalable playbooks and reference architectures, mentoring engineers, owning the technical strategy for enterprise accounts, and representing Tavily externally in executive conversations and communities. The candidate will stay hands‑on with strategic customer engagements, build reference implementations and production integrations, and contribute to a high‑impact, fast‑moving engineering function. You’ll work remotely from within the United States with regular presence in New York City as needed. Responsibilities: - Define and evolve the FDE organization’s vision, operating model, execution playbooks, resourcing strategy, and quarterly priorities. - Lead, mentor, and scale an existing team of Forward Deployed Engineers by raising the bar for hiring, technical excellence, execution, and customer impact. - Own the technical strategy for Tavily’s most strategic enterprise accounts, from discovery and solution design through POCs, production rollout, and expansion. - Partner with Sales and Customer Success to shape technical strategy for strategic accounts, accelerate enterprise adoption, and drive expansion opportunities. - Serve as the senior technical voice with executive stakeholders, including CTOs, VPs of Engineering, founders, and technical decision-makers. - Stay hands-on by leading strategic customer engagements and building reference implementations, retrieval pipelines, agentic systems, production integrations, and technical prototypes on the Tavily API. - Support select high‑impact technical initiatives where senior field expertise is needed, including strategic customer, product, or partner‑facing work. - Build scalable internal assets, including playbooks, demo environments, documentation, reference architectures, tooling, and reusable templates. - Synthesize customer patterns and technical feedback into clear product and engineering roadmap recommendations. - Represent Tavily externally in executive customer conversations, strategic engagements, developer communities, conferences, and technical content. Qualifications: - 10+ years of software engineering experience, including significant experience in customer‑facing technical roles such as Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Architect, Solutions Engineer, or Sales Engineer. - 4+ years building or leading customer‑facing engineering teams, including hiring, coaching, performance management, and organizational scaling. - Strong hands‑on engineering ability in Python, APIs, distributed systems, and modern software architecture. - Deep experience designing and building production AI systems, including LLM applications, agentic workflows, retrieval architectures, evaluation systems, and the infrastructure required to operate them reliably at scale. - Strong familiarity with the modern AI application stack, including agent orchestration frameworks, retrieval infrastructure, evaluation tooling, and production deployment patterns. - Proven track record leading the technical side of enterprise engagements from initial architecture discussions through successful production deployment and expansion. - Strong business and commercial judgment, with the ability to balance customer outcomes, engineering investment, and company priorities when making technical and organizational decisions. - Excellent written and verbal communication skills across executive, technical, and developer audiences. - A builder’s mindset with the ability to create structure, operating rhythms, and scalable playbooks in fast‑moving, ambiguous environments. - Based in New York City or willing to relocate, or able to maintain a strong presence with the team and customers. Nice to have: - Experience leading a Forward Deployed Engineering, Solutions Architecture, Solutions Engineering, or Professional Services organization. - Experience scaling a customer‑facing engineering function through rapid company growth. - Open‑source contributions to AI infrastructure, agent frameworks, retrieval systems, or evaluation tooling. - Experience speaking at developer conferences or publishing technical content on AI systems, agents, or LLM applications. - Domain expertise in financial services, legal, enterprise SaaS, consulting, or AI infrastructure. - Experience collaborating with model providers, AI platforms, or strategic technology partners. Key Employee Benefits: - Health Insurance: 100% company‑paid medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and families. - 401(k) Plan: Up to 4% company match with immediate vesting. - Parental Leave: 20 weeks paid for primary caregivers, 12 weeks for secondary caregivers. - Remote Work Reimbursement: Up to $85/month for mobile and internet. - Disability & Life Insurance: Company‑paid short‑term, long‑term, and life insurance coverage. - Pay Transparency - Base Compensation Range - Benefits & Perks: - Competitive compensation - Career growth and learning opportunities - Flexibility and ownership - Collaborative and innovative culture - Opportunity to work on impactful AI projects - International environment and talented teams What it’s like to work at Nebius: Fast moving - Bold thinking - Constant growth - Meaningful impact - Trust and real ownership - Opportunity to shape the future of AI Equal Opportunity: Nebius is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of protected characteristics and are committed to an inclusive workplace.