Director, Forward Deployed Engineering

BetterUp; United States; On-site; USD 237,600 - 330,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Access to BetterUp coaching

Competitive salary with advancement opportunities

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

Flexible paid time off

Learning and Development stipend

Year-round charitable contributions

Job summary

BetterUp is seeking a Director of Forward Deployed Engineering in the United States. The role involves owning technical delivery for key enterprise accounts while leading a dedicated team of engineers. The position is hybrid, emphasizing in-person collaboration at company hubs like San Francisco and New York City.

The ideal candidate will have extensive software engineering experience, demonstrate leadership abilities, and possess hands-on technical skills. BetterUp offers competitive compensation, including coaching and flexible paid time off.

Qualifications

• Strong experience in leading engineering teams.
• Ability to deliver software in ambiguous environments.
• Demonstrated technical rigor and customer engagement.

Responsibilities

• Own technical delivery for strategic enterprise accounts.
• Turn field insights into platform capabilities.
• Build and lead a high-trust engineering team.

Skills

12+ years in software engineering

Track record delivering complex software

Strong hands-on technical foundation

Excellent stakeholder skills

Sound judgment on enterprise concerns

Tools

AWS

Azure

Google Cloud

Job description

Let’s face it, a company whose mission is human transformation better have some fresh thinking about the employer/employee relationship.

We do. We can’t cram it all in here, but you’ll start noticing it from the first interview.

Even our candidate experience is different. And when you get an offer from us (and accept it), you get way more than a paycheck. You get a personal BetterUp Coach, a development plan, a trained and coached manager, the most amazing team you’ve ever met (yes, each with their own personal BetterUp Coach), and most importantly, work that matters.

This makes for a remarkably focused and fulfilling work experience. Frankly, it’s not for everyone. But for people with fire in their belly, it’s a game-changing, career-defining, soul-lifting move.

Join us and we promise you the most intense and fulfilling years of your career, doing life-changing work in a fun, inventive, soulful culture.

If that sounds exciting—and the job description below feels like a fit—we really should start talking.

We are a hybrid company with a focus on in-person collaboration when necessary. 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.

Forward Deployed Engineering is where BetterUp’s platform meets the hardest, highest-value enterprise problems. You’ll lead the team that embeds with our largest and most strategic customers—translating ambiguous, executive-level requirements into working software, fast. This is a builder-leader role: you’ll set technical direction, own delivery across marquee accounts, and grow a team that is equally comfortable in a customer’s boardroom and in the codebase.

What you’ll do:

• Own technical delivery for strategic enterprise accounts. Lead FDE engagements end to end—from scoping with customer stakeholders through prototype, production rollout, and handoff to core platform teams.
• Be the bridge between field and platform. Turn what you learn in the field into durable platform capability; feed real customer signal back into the roadmap.
• Build and lead a high-trust team. Hire, develop, and retain forward-deployed engineers who thrive in customer-facing, high-ambiguity environments. Set the bar for technical rigor and customer judgment.
• Move fast without breaking trust. Ship prototypes and integrations on aggressive timelines while maintaining security, data-governance, and enterprise-readiness standards.
• Partner across the org. Work hand-in-glove with product, sales engineering, security, and platform leadership to unblock deals and de-risk delivery commitments.
• Operate as a technical executive in the room. Earn credibility directly with customer engineering and executive stakeholders; represent BetterUp’s technical vision in working sessions and escalations.

If you have some or all of the following, please apply:

• 12+ years in software engineering, with 4+ years leading engineering teams (manager-of-managers, or a strong senior-IC-to-lead trajectory).
• Track record delivering complex software in customer-facing or forward-deployed settings—FDE, solutions engineering, or professional services with real engineering depth.
• Strong hands-on technical foundation: UI, distributed systems, APIs and integrations, identity and provisioning and other Enterprise requirements. Cloud platforms experience (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, etc.) a strong plus.
• Demonstrated ability to operate amid ambiguity—taking vague, executive-level asks and producing working software on tight timelines.
• Excellent stakeholder skills: credible with both customer engineers and senior business leaders.
• Sound judgment on enterprise concerns: security, data governance, compliance, and scalability.

Nice to Have

• Experience with composability / configurable-product architectures and group-level governance models.
• Background working with very large enterprise customers (Fortune 100 / regulated industries).
• Experience standing up or scaling an FDE / 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.

As a Director, Forward Deployed Engineering you’ll:

• 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 by embedding experimentation into operating rhythms across FDE engagements.
• Partner with IT, Legal, and Security to establish governance frameworks that enable responsible AI scaling in enterprise contexts.
• Influence peer directors to adopt AI practices that improve cross-functional collaboration and customer outcomes.

During our interview process, you’ll have opportunities to showcase how you harness AI to learn, iterate, and amplify your impact. We encourage all candidates to share examples of how they’ve used AI tools in their work—whether it’s AI-assisted SQL generation, LLM-powered data documentation, automated anomaly detection, or other applications. We view AI fluency as a complement to craft, not a replacement for it.

Benefits:

At BetterUp, we are committed to living out our mission every day and that starts with providing benefits that allow our employees to care for themselves, support their families, and give back to their community.

• Access to BetterUp coaching; one for you and one for a friend or family member
• A competitive compensation plan with opportunity for advancement
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Flexible paid time off
• Per year:
  • All federal/statutory holidays observed
  • 4 BetterUp Inner Workdays (https://www.betterup.co/inner-work)
  • 5 Volunteer Days to give back
  • Learning and Development stipend
  • Company wide Summer & Winter breaks
• Year-round charitable contribution of your choice on behalf of BetterUp
• 401(k) self contribution

BetterUp Inc. provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, genetics, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status. In addition to federal law requirements, BetterUp Inc. complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

We are dedicated to building diverse teams that fuel an authentic workplace and sense of belonging for each and every employee. We know applying for a job can be intimidating, please don’t hesitate to reach out — we encourage everyone interested in joining us to apply.

At BetterUp, we compensate our employees fairly for their work. Base salary is determined by job-related experience, education/training, residence location, as well as market indicators. The range below is representative of base salary only and does not include equity, sales bonus plans (when applicable) and benefits. This range may be modified in the future.

The base salary range for this role is as follows:

New York City and San Francisco: $264,000 - 330,000

Austin and Arlington: $237,600 - 297,000