Director, Forward Deployed Engineering

About the role

This role owns the technical strategy and execution for enterprise customers at the highest level of engagement. You will translate ambiguous executive business needs into working software delivered with enterprise-grade rigor and speed. You lead the forward deployed engineering teams who are embedded directly with marquee clients. The position requires equal comfort in deep technical work and high-stakes stakeholder communication. You will define the technical vision for engagements and ensure it aligns with the broader platform roadmap. Success is measured by your ability to de-risk large deals and ensure customer delight through reliable delivery. You will mentor engineers to thrive in complex, ambiguous, and customer-facing environments. This role is critical to scaling trusted partnerships and proving the value of our human transformation mission through software.

Key facts

• Own technical delivery for strategic enterprise accounts, leading engagements from scoping through production rollout and handoff.
• Translate ambiguous executive-level requirements into working software that meets enterprise standards for security and governance.
• Build and lead a high-trust team of forward-deployed engineers, hiring and developing talent that excels with clients.
• Serve as the primary bridge between field insights and platform capability, feeding customer signals into the product roadmap.
• Move fast without breaking trust, shipping prototypes and integrations on aggressive timelines while maintaining compliance.
• Partner deeply with product, sales engineering, security, and platform leadership to unblock deals and de-risk commitments.
• Operate as a technical executive in customer rooms, representing BetterUp's technical vision to engineering and executive stakeholders.
• Ensure every engagement reinforces data governance, identity and provisioning, and enterprise-readiness standards.
• Leverage cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud to architect scalable and resilient solutions.
• Continuously synthesize field feedback to strengthen the core platform and future feature investments.

Requirements

• 12+ years in software engineering with a strong foundation in UI, distributed systems, and APIs.
• 4+ years leading engineering teams with a manager-of-managers or senior-IC leadership trajectory.
• Demonstrated history delivering complex software in customer-facing or forward-deployed settings.
• Hands-on expertise with identity, provisioning, security, data governance, and enterprise compliance requirements.
• Ability to operate amid high ambiguity, turning vague executive asks into concrete working software.
• Excellent credibility and communication skills with both customer engineers and senior business leaders.
• Sound judgment around scalability, reliability, and enterprise risk management.
• Proven ability to partner cross-functionally to remove blockers and protect delivery commitments.

Nice to have

• Experience with composability and configurable-product architectures and group-level governance models.
• Background working with very large enterprise customers in Fortune 100 or regulated industries.
• Experience standing up or scaling an FDE or forward-deployed practice from early stage.
• Exposure to AI-native engineering workflows and agentic tooling.

AI at BetterUp

Our team thrives at the intersection of human expertise and AI capability. As an AI-forward company, adaptation and continuous learning are part of our daily work. We're looking for teammates who are excited to evolve alongside technology - people who experiment boldly, share their discoveries openly, and help define best practices for AI-augmented work.

• 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 and responsible experimentation.
• Drive adoption of AI tools that enhance the delivery of enterprise software and client outcomes.
• Partner with product and data teams to integrate intelligent capabilities into customer workflows.
• Model curiosity and mentorship in how emerging technologies can amplify human potential.

Practical notes

Employees are expected to be available to work from one of our office hubs at least two days per week, or eight days per month. Our US hub locations include: Austin, TX; New York City, NY; San Francisco, CA; and the Washington, DC metro area. Please ensure you can realistically commit to this structure before applying.