Head of Forward Deployed Engineering

About Actively

Actively is building superintelligence for GTM teams. We train custom reasoning agents to think like a company’s best sales reps, and then use them to evaluate millions of datapoints about every single prospect account in the company’s TAM to identify and execute the optimal actions each day to maximize revenue.

Our customers include some of the fastest-growing companies out there — Ramp, Verkada, Justworks, Ironclad, etc. — for whom we’ve driven hundreds of millions of dollars in added revenue in the past year.

We’ve raised over $22.5M in funding, including a recent Series A led by Bain Capital Ventures.

The base salary range for this full-time position based in New York is: $225,000 - $270,000.

About the Role

As our Head of Deployment, you’ll be responsible for building and leading a world-class Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) team – the customer-embedded technical experts who bring our product to life. You’ll define what “great” looks like in this function and architect the systems, structure, and culture that enable our team to deliver exceptional, scalable value to every customer.

You’ll be responsible for defining what excellent technical delivery looks like in a customer-facing environment – and then hiring, coaching, and scaling a team to consistently hit that bar. You’ll partner closely with Engagement Managers, Sales, Product, & Engineering to drive clarity and execution across deployments, protect time for strategic and reusable work, and ensure our team shows up as proactive partners to our customers. You’ll also serve as a key connective tissue between what’s happening on the ground and where the product needs to go. 

This role is for those excited about building a team from the ground up, partnering closely with customers, and shaping how a cutting-edge product gets deployed in the real world

What You’ll Do

• Hire, onboard, and grow a high-caliber FDE team with strong technical depth and customer empathy.
• Foster a culture of curiosity, urgency, commercial awareness, and technical excellence.
• Define and operationalize the FDE operating model — clear roles, engagement rhythms, and expectations for partnering across functions.
• Build and maintain strategic relationships with customers; act as an escalation point for complex deployments.
• Oversee our most strategic launches and deployments; ensure consistent quality, alignment, and execution.
• Drive technical strategy for the FDE function – establish architecture best practices, standardize implementation approaches, and guide reusable tooling efforts.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering to close product gaps that block delivery or require excessive customization.
• Institutionalize feedback loops so customer insights inform product development and roadmap prioritization.
• Establish and track metrics for deployment effectiveness, quality, and scalability.

Who You Are

• Proven track record (4-6+ years) leading high-performing, technical customer‑facing teams (FDE, Solutions Engineering, Professional Services, etc.), ideally in a high-growth B2B SaaS environment.
• Proven ability to hire, coach, and retain top-tier technical talent.
• Exceptional commercial acumen: able to speak the language of customers, connect technical work to customer value, and uncover opportunities and influence decisions.
• Strong technical foundation: able to engage deeply on architecture, integrations, and workflow design without needing to be the primary builder.
• Structured and disciplined operator: excels at creating structure in ambiguity, building repeatable processes, and driving urgency and accountability across multiple concurrent deployments.
• Experience working closely with product/engineering to shape roadmap based on customer insights.
• Comfort in high‑ambiguity, high‑growth startup environments; thrives on building from scratch.
• Bonus: Experience directly supporting sales cycles or driving expansion opportunities within enterprise accounts.

Benefits

• 🚀 Competitive Early-Stage Equity
• ⚕ Health, Dental, Vision Coverage
• 💡 Unlimited PTO + Recharge Days
• 🍽️ Catered Lunch on Tuesday & Friday w/ Dinners Everyday!
• 🍿 Fully Stock Kitchen
• 💻 Cutting-Edge Tech & Tools
• 🌴 Annual Off-sites & Monthly Events
• 🚆 Commuter Benefits
• 🏢 Beautiful Office in NYC

 

This position is eligible for incentive stock options, subject to the terms of Actively AI's applicable plans. Actively AI offers the following benefits for this position, subject to applicable eligibility requirements: health, dental and vision insurance, retirement benefits, and unlimited PTO. Additionally, this role may be eligible for additional benefits such as a commuter stipend. Please discuss with your recruiter for more information.

 

Note on Pay Transparency:
Actively AI provides an estimate of the compensation for roles that may be hired as required by state regulations. Compensation may vary based on (a) location, as Actively AI factors in specific location when benchmarking compensation for most roles; (b) individual candidate skills and qualifications; and (c) individual candidate experience. Additionally, Actively AI leverages current market data to determine compensation, so posted compensation figures are subject to change as new market data becomes available. The salary, other compensation, and benefits information is accurate as of the date of this posting. Actively.ai reserves the right to modify this information at any time, subject to applicable law.