Director of Forward Deployed AI Engineering

Nebius Group; Amsterdam; Hybrid; EUR 243,000 - 278,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance: 100% company-paid

401(k) Plan: up to 4% matching

Parental Leave: 20 weeks / 12 weeks

Remote Work Reimbursement: up to $85/月

Disability & Life Insurance

Job summary

Nebius is seeking a Director of Forward Deployed Engineering to build and scale a world-class FDE organization across AI applications, inference, infrastructure, and data. You will recruit, shape the operating model, and drive technical excellence to turn partner engagements into reusable platform assets.

This role sits at the intersection of engineering leadership, AI platform architecture, ecosystem partnerships, and product strategy, with remote work available in the United States.

Qualifications

• 12-18+ years of experience across engineering, solutions architecture, customer engineering, field engineering, or forward deployed engineering.
• 3-7+ years leading technical field organizations, including building a new function or scaling an existing team.
• Strong record of hiring, coaching, and scaling Customer Engineering, FDE, Solutions Architecture, or Field CTO teams.
• Hands-on engineering experience in cloud, infrastructure, AI, or developer platforms.
• Technical judgment to review and elevate architectures across AI applications, inference, infrastructure, and data platforms.
• Proven track record of converting customer and partner feedback into shipped platform improvements.
• Executive presence and credibility as a trusted advisor to founders, CTOs, and enterprise technical executives.
• Experience leading across cloud providers, AI platforms, ISVs, open source communities, and strategic technology partners.
• The ability to hire experts, evaluate their work, and set a high technical standard without needing to be the deepest specialist in every domain.

Responsibilities

• Build, hire, and develop a world-class Forward Deployed Engineering organization across AI applications, inference, infrastructure, and data.
• Define the talent bar, team structure, career paths, and leadership expectations for the function.
• Coach engineers and managers toward greater independence while maintaining a consistently high technical standard.
• Build an organization and leadership system that scales without depending on individual heroics.
• Establish scalable operating models for partner engagement, technical scoping, architecture reviews, escalation, and delivery health.
• Set the technical bar for integrations, proofs of concept, reference architectures, and partner assessments produced by the team.
• Review architectures across AI applications, managed inference, cloud infrastructure, and data platforms, bringing in deeper experts where needed.
• Balance speed with engineering quality and ensure the team builds production-quality work rather than disposable demonstrations.
• Engage credibly with founders, CTOs, senior engineering leaders, and enterprise technical executives as Nebius's senior FDE leader.
• Build trusted relationships across AI platforms, cloud providers, ISVs, open source communities, and strategic technology partners.
• Represent Forward Deployed Engineering in platform planning, ecosystem strategy, and executive investment decisions.
• Create a strong external technical presence through workshops, reference architectures, open source work, events, and developer advocacy.
• Treat partner engagements as a continuous product discovery engine and convert field learning into roadmap priorities and shipped platform improvements.
• Ensure every engagement creates reusable value through platform capabilities, reference architectures, tooling, benchmarks, documentation, or automation.
• Prevent the function from becoming one-off consulting work by setting clear boundaries and rewarding reusable outcomes.
• Partner with Product and Engineering leadership to close the loop on recurring friction and improve the experience for customers beyond the original engagement.

Skills

Engineering Leadership

Solutions Architecture

Customer Engineering

Field Engineering

Cloud Platforms

AI Platforms

Job description

Nebius is seeking a Director of Forward Deployed Engineering to build and scale a world-class FDE organization across AI applications, inference, infrastructure, and data. You will recruit, shape the operating model, and drive technical excellence to turn partner engagements into reusable platform assets.

This role sits at the intersection of engineering leadership, AI platform architecture, ecosystem partnerships, and product strategy, with remote work available in the United States.