Director, Forward Deployed Engineering

Socket.dev; United States; On-site; USD 271,000 - 310,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance: 100% company-paid

401(k) Plan: up to 4% match

Parental Leave: 20 weeks

Remote Work Reimbursement: up to $85/月

Disability & Life Insurance

Job summary

Nebius is building a world-class Forward Deployed Engineering organization in the United States, focusing on AI applications, inference, infrastructure, and data platforms. You will recruit top engineers, set the operating model, and ensure technical excellence while turning partner engagements into reusable platform assets.

You will lead across cloud providers, AI platforms, ISVs, and open source communities, driving strategic ecosystem collaborations and high-impact product improvements for

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 a team.
• Strong record of hiring, coaching, and scaling Customer Engineering, FDE, Solutions Architecture, or Field CTO teams.
• Earlier 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 with founders, CTOs, and enterprise technical executives.
• Experience leading across cloud providers, AI platforms, ISVs, open source communities, and strategic technology partners.

Responsibilities

• Build and scale a 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 independence while maintaining a high technical standard.
• Establish scalable operating models for partner engagement, technical scoping, architecture reviews, escalation, and delivery health.
• Review architectures across AI applications, managed inference, cloud infrastructure, and data platforms.
• Represent Nebius's senior FDE leader in platform planning, ecosystem strategy, and executive investments.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Solutions architecture

Customer engineering

Cloud platforms

Executive presence

Job description

About Nebius

Nebius is leading a new era in cloud infrastructure for the global AI economy. We are building a full-stack AI cloud platform that supports developers and enterprises from data and model training through to production deployment, without the cost and complexity of building large in-house AI/ML infrastructure.

Built by engineers, for engineers. From large-scale GPU orchestration to inference optimization, we own the hard problems across compute, storage, networking and applied AI.

Listed on Nasdaq (NBIS) and headquartered in Amsterdam, we have a global footprint with R&D hubs across Europe, the UK, North America and Israel. Our team of 1,500+ includes hundreds of engineers with deep expertise across hardware, software and AI R&D.

The role

Nebius builds the infrastructure serious AI teams run on - GPU clusters, inference runtimes, agent development environments, data pipelines - all of it purpose-built for the most demanding AI workloads. What we are now building is the ecosystem function that ensures the world's best AI companies are successful on Nebius.

As Director of Forward Deployed Engineering, you will build and scale the organization that makes those companies successful on our platform. You will recruit exceptional FDEs, establish the operating model, ensure technical excellence, and turn partner engagements into product improvements and reusable platform assets.

This is not a Sales Engineering leader, Professional Services manager, or traditional Engineering manager role. It sits at the intersection of engineering leadership, AI platform architecture, ecosystem partnerships, and product strategy.

You are welcome to work remotely in the United States.

Organization Building & Talent

• 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.

Operating Model & Technical Excellence

• 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.

Executive & Ecosystem Leadership

• 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.

Field-to-Product & Reusable Leverage

• 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.

We expect you to have

• 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 experience building a new function or materially scaling an existing team.
• A strong record of hiring, coaching, and scaling Customer Engineering, FDE, Solutions Architecture, or Field CTO teams.
• Earlier 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.
• A 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.

It will be an added bonus if you have

• Strong relationships across the AI and cloud ecosystem.
• Public technical leadership through talks, workshops, reference architectures, open source projects, or developer advocacy.
• Built a Forward Deployed Engineering, Customer Engineering, or Field Engineering organization from zero to one.
• Scaled a technical field organization across regions or ecosystem domains without lowering the hiring or engineering bar.
• Experience as a founder, VP Engineering, Field CTO, Head of Customer Engineering, or early FDE leader.
• Led production architecture and execution for demanding AI application, training, inference, or platform workloads.

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

We offer competitive compensation and benefits packages. Actual compensation will be determined based on job-related factors, including experience, skills, qualifications, the level at which the candidate is hired, and geographic location, consistent with applicable law.

Base Compensation Range: $270,800 - $310,000 USD

Base Compensation Range: $260 - $310 USD

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's it 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 Statement

Nebius is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace and to providing equal employment opportunities in all aspects of employment. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, ancestry, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

Applicants must be authorized to work in the country in which they apply and will be required to provide proof of employment eligibility as a condition of hire.

If you need accommodations during the application process, please let us know.