Director of Forward Deployed Engineering, NORAM

taktile; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Taktile is seeking a Director of Forward Deployed Engineering to lead our NORAM FDE organization and scale AI and decisioning solutions into production.

This hands-on leadership role will manage 15-20 FDEs, define operating models, tooling, and standards, and act as a senior technical leader on complex customer engagements. The role requires a strong technical background and a track record of delivering production-grade AI solutions.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in Implementation/Forward Deployed/Delivery roles in a B2B SaaS setting.
• Proven leadership of 15-20 engineers and multi-quarter enterprise deployments.
• Strong software fundamentals and production-grade delivery experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead NORAM FDE organization to deliver contracts in production with measurable value.
• Own quarterly Go-live ARR metric for NORAM.
• Scale FDE delivery by building tooling, standards, and reusable components.

Skills

Python

SQL

REST APIs

Data pipelines

Data warehouse

Leadership

Cloud platforms

Job description

Taktile is building the infrastructure that enables financial institutions to become truly AI-native. As our customer base grows, we're looking for a Director of Forward Deployed Engineering to lead our NORAM FDE organization and scale how we deliver complex AI and decisioning solutions into production.

This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who has led teams of Forward Deployed, Implementation, or Delivery Engineers through complex enterprise deployments. You'll lead a team of 15-20 FDEs while also acting as a senior technical leader on our most challenging customer engagements. You'll help define the operating model, tooling, and standards that allow an FDE-led delivery organization to move quickly while consistently delivering production-grade solutions and measurable customer value.

What You'll Do as Director, Forward Deployed Engineering

As a coach:

Lead a team of 15-20 FDEs in our NORAM region to ensure signed contracts are delivered in production with solid, measurable business value.

Own the Quarterly Go-live ARR metric for NORAM region.

Own team operations e.g. monitor signed contracts backlog, manage implementation pipeline, assign project staffing, monitor team capacity, review project milestones, evaluate and sign off project outcomes, etc.

Scale our FDE-led delivery motion by working closely with Engineering and Product teams to build and maintain the FDE tooling library and ensure flexibility, reusability, and maintainability in the FDE operating system layer.

Advocate for your team's priorities with Product and Engineering leaders, securing the resources to unblock and accelerate key implementations.

Hire and develop FDEs to keep pace with the business.

As a player:

Act as principal FDE and solution architect on our most complex deployments, owning enterprise, production-grade design.

Bring technical expertise and authority to lead problem solving sessions with customers' technical teams and Taktile internal engineering teams.

Provide sharp signal on product-market fit, product gaps, and enhancements back to Product and Engineering

Remain genuinely hands-on - platform configuration, AI-agent training and evals- and step into delivery work when a project needs it.

About You

You, first and foremost, truly believe in the FDE-led AI delivery motion. You want to be part of building and running an industry-best FDE team that implement enterprise production-grade AI solutions highly efficiently and at-scale.

You have 10+ years of experience as an Implementation Engineer, Forward Deployed Engineer, Solution Engineer or an equivalent position within a B2B SaaS company.

You've led large, multi-quarter enterprise implementations- seven-figure ARR, staffed by cross-functional teams.

You have strong technical background, preferred in fields such as Computer Science, Mathematics, Software Engineering, Physics, and Data Science.

You've managed a team (5+ reports) and can grow one.

You're still sharp in production Python and SQL, and fluent with REST APIs, batch data pipelines, and data-warehouse integrations.

You're bilingual in tech and business: you go deep with engineers and talk value and trade-offs with executives.

You're collaborative, curious, and low-ego- you work well across product, engineering, and GTM teams, and you bring a genuine desire to advocate for customers' successes while maintaining Taktile solution and system principles.

You can work from our NYC office at least three days per week.

Ideal Qualifications (but not required)

You have experience in building AI applications within financial services

You have experience in applying and optimizing statistical and machine learning models to solve business problems.

You have first hand experience in at least one of our core use cases: business onboarding, business loan underwriting, insurance claim processing, and financial crime / fraud / AML investigation.

You have experience with at least one of the major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP).

What We Offer

Work with colleagues that lift you up, challenge you, celebrate you and help you grow. We come from many different backgrounds, but what we have in common is the desire to operate at the very top of our fields. If you are similarly capable, caring, and driven, you'll find yourself at home here.

Make an impact and meaningfully shape an early-stage company.

Experience a truly flat hierarchy and communicate directly with founding team members. Having an opinion and voicing your ideas is not only welcome but encouraged, especially when they challenge the status quo.

Learn from experienced mentors and achieve tremendous personal and professional growth. Get to know and leverage our network of leading tech investors and advisors around the globe.

Receive a top-of-market equity and cash compensation package.

Get access to a self-development budget you can use to e.g. attend conferences, buy books or take classes.

Use the equipment of your choice including meanin