Deployment Strategist: MBB or Startup Ops, Customer Deployments & AI Fluency | San Francisco (On-site, 25-75% Travel) | Up to $200K + Equity

Big Wave Digital - USA; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Big Wave Digital - USA is looking for a deployment strategist who blends consulting rigor with hands-on customer work to bring AI-enabled, physically aware solutions to industrial clients. You will travel 25-75%, building strong relationships with engineers and operators who use the product.

On-site in San Francisco five days a week when not traveling, you will renew and expand key accounts, and coordinate with GTM, product, and engineering to turn feedback into action and drive adoption.

Qualifications

• 2-5 years in a deployment strategist, customer-facing or consulting role.
• Bachelor's degree from a top-25 school.
• Real AI fluency. Not just experience with ChatGPT.
• Able to build relationships with skeptical engineers and translate to product needs.
• Willingness to travel 25-75% of the time.

Responsibilities

• Build relationships with engineers and operators at customer sites.
• Drive renewals and expansions with large industrial customers.
• Translate customer feedback into clear product asks and loop back to customers.
• Collaborate with GTM, sales, product and engineering from SF for debriefs.

Skills

Customer-facing

Strategic consulting

AI fluency

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." - Alan Kay

Some people invent the future in a lab. This one gets invented on factory floors and in engineering bays, in rooms full of people who have been using the same design software since the nineties and are quietly desperate for something better.

THE SHORT VERSION

A Series A, venture-backed AI company in San Francisco is building foundation models with genuine spatial understanding: AI that can actually design and engineer physical things, not just talk about them.

They have just raised, they are about ten people, and they are stepping into their first real go-to-market motion. You only get to do a company's first GTM once.

Salary: $150,000 - $200,000 base, plus competitive equity. Top of band is genuinely available for the right person, and they are open to visa transfers and new sponsorship.

WHAT YOU WOULD ACTUALLY BE DOING

Get on site. You will be at customer locations 25-75% of the time, often every other week, building relationships with the engineers and operators actually using the product.

Grow the accounts. Renewals, expansions, and nudging promising prospects toward signing. Large industrial and engineering customers, with seven-figure contracts expected.

Close the loop with engineering. Turn messy, real-world customer feedback into clear asks for product and engineering, then go back and tell the customer what changed.

Debrief in SF. Between trips you are back in the office with GTM, sales, product and engineering, working shoulder to shoulder with the CEO.

WHO THIS IS BUILT FOR

Two archetypes, and you only need to be one of them.

Archetype A: the consultant who wants to build something. You are at McKinsey, Bain or BCG, you are good at it, and you want to be the person who stays, ships, and sees whether it worked.

Archetype B: the startup operator who has already lived it. Customer-facing at a VC-backed startup, Series A through D, owning a deployment or an account end to end.

WHAT THEY ARE CALIBRATING AGAINST

2-5 years in a deployment strategist, customer-facing or consulting role. Palantir FDE and deployment backgrounds are a priority target.

A bachelor's degree from a top-25 school.

Real AI fluency. Not "I have used ChatGPT" - they want people who build agents, scripts and workflows.

Communication that holds up in a room. Able to build a relationship with a sceptical principal engineer and translate what they said into something product can act on.

Genuine willingness to travel 25-75% of the time. This is a knockout requirement.

On-site in San Francisco five days a week when not on the road. No remote option.

Mechanical engineering or manufacturing exposure is a nice-to-have, not a requirement.

Two things that count against you: a pattern of job hopping or under 18 months at your current company, and a purely internal background with no direct customer-facing on-site work.

WHY NOW

AI for the physical world, not another chat wrapper. The first GTM motion, with the playbook still unwritten. Small SF team and a direct line to the CEO. Seven-figure contracts with serious industrial customers.

THE PROCESS

Four rounds, run quickly: two 20-minute intro calls, an on-site, and a follow-up. Behavioural interviews focused on your actual customer work. References required.