Engineering Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering

Wmg; Ontario (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Warner Music Group is seeking an Engineering Manager for the Forward Deployed Engineering team. You will lead embedded engineers, own intake and orchestration, and drive AI-enabled optimization across enterprise platforms.

The role requires balancing technical judgment with organizational empathy, coaching engineers, and partnering with data, product, and business sponsors to deliver measurable outcomes. This position is based in a global music company environment.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software engineering, including 2+ years in people management.
• Experience leading embedded teams in Forward Deployed Engineering or matrixed settings.
• Defined, scaled operating playbooks for intake, routing, and reusable delivery models.
• Ability to translate business requests into clear technical requirements for tech teams.
• Familiarity with modern LLM ecosystems and cloud data platforms.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; comfortable with non-technical stakeholders.
• Music/entertainment industry experience is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Build, coach, and manage a high-performing FDE team across lines of business.
• Define and maintain the FDE operating playbook, intake standards, and routing rules.
• Turn ambiguous processes into clear, repeatable frameworks used by sponsors.
• Align engineers, product owners, sponsors, and executives on standards and roadmaps.
• Champion reusable assets and developer tooling and maintain ownership paths.
• Set the technical bar for AI optimization across enterprise frameworks.
• Own end-to-end governance including security, cost telemetry, and lifecycle management.
• Translate operational pain points into technical requirements and provide leadership visibility.
• Define success metrics and run the operating rhythm for intake and outcomes.

Skills

Software engineering

Solution architecture

Data engineering

AI/ML delivery

Engineering leadership

Communication

Vendor management

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in a related field

Tools

Databricks

Gemini Enterprise

Claude

Cursor

Job description

At Warner Music Group, we’re a global collective of music makers and music lovers, tech innovators and inspired entrepreneurs, game-changing creatives and passionate team members. Here, we turn dreams into stardom and audiences into fans. We are guided by three core values that underpin everything we do across all our diverse businesses:

• Curiosity: We do our best work when we’re immersing ourselves in culture and breaking through barriers. Curiosity is the driving force behind creativity and ingenuity. It fuels innovation, and innovation is the key to our future.
• Collaboration: Making music and bringing it to the world is all about the power of originality amplified by teamwork. A great idea, like a great song, travels globally. We ignite passions and build connections across our diverse community of artists, songwriters, partners, and fans.
• Commitment: We pursue excellence for our team and our talent. Everything in music starts with a leap into the unknown, and we’re committed to keeping the faith, acting with integrity, and delivering on our promises.

Technology is one of the most important parts of our business. Whether it’s signing up new artists; ensuring we provide the right data to Spotify, YouTube, and other digital service providers; or helping artists use the latest AI tools and make thoughtful decisions with data-driven insights – technology plays an invaluable role in our success. The engineering team at Warner Music Group makes all of it a reality. Check out first-hand accounts from the WMG engineering, product, design, infrastructure and data teams in our blog!

WMG is home to a wide range of artists, musicians, and songwriters that fuel our success. That is why we are committed to creating a work environment that actively values, appreciates, and respects everyone. We encourage applications from people with a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences.

Consider a career at WMG and get the best of both worlds – an innovative global music company that retains the creative spirit of a nimble independent.

A little bit about our team:

WMG Technology’s Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) team sits at the intersection of enterprise engineering and business enablement. We embed engineers with global business units — including Finance, HR, and our recorded music labels — to turn operational pain points into high-value AI and automation solutions.

Working directly with the business, we run a centralized intake, routing, and delivery model so the business can move in days or weeks using existing tools, while larger foundational work graduates cleanly onto the product roadmap. We set a shared technical bar, reuse what already works, and keep AI deployments secure, cost-transparent, and maintainable.

Your role:

Reporting to the Director of FDE & AI Optimization, the Engineering Manager will lead a team of embedded engineers and own how FDE work is taken in, built, reused, and graduated.

This is a hands-on people-manager role. You will coach engineers who sit inside lines of business while holding a centralized technical reporting structure, operating playbook, and delivery standard. You will partner with Data Engineer, Product Owner and business sponsors to turn ambiguous requests into a clear, repeatable operating model — and to make sure FDE is a trusted path for AI optimization, not a shadow-IT queue.

The ideal manager brings an equal blend of technical judgment and organizational empathy: comfortable in the tools, rigorous about routing and reuse, and able to help non-technical stakeholders translate operational pain points into work the team can actually ship.

Responsibilities

• Build, coach, and manage a high-performing FDE team, including hiring, performance, and embedding engineers in specific lines of business while keeping them aligned to core tech standards.
• Define, scale, and maintain the FDE technical operating playbook — intake standards, routing rules, reusable delivery models, and engagement lifecycle — so work enters, ships, and leaves FDE by clear criteria.
• Turn ambiguous organizational processes (intake routing, priority rubrics, and graduation gateways) into clear, repeatable frameworks that business sponsors actually use.
• Align engineers, product owners, business sponsors, and executive partners around shared technical standards, priority, and delivery roadmaps — and resolve boundary conflicts so there is one intake path, not shadow requests.
• Champion reusable assets, developer tooling (including ADK/SDK patterns and an internal assets marketplace), and best practices so teams stop reinventing the wheel and production work has a named owner and a maintenance path.
• Set the technical bar for bottom-up AI optimization: agents and automation on validated enterprise frameworks (including Databricks, Gemini Enterprise, Claude, and Airtable).
• Own end-to-end operational governance for FDE deliveries — security and compliance, Cost of AI telemetry, and lifecycle management from prototype through production graduation or retire.
• Partner with divisional leaders and budget owners to translate operational pain points into technical requirements, educate business units on how to work with tech, and give leadership a clear view of FDE capacity, outcomes, and aggregate AI cost.
• Define success metrics for the FDE engagement model and run the operating rhythm (intake SLA, reuse, outcomes) that keeps the team efficient as demand scales.

Requirements

• You have 7+ years of experience in software engineering, solution architecture, data engineering, or AI/ML delivery, including 2+ years managing engineers.
• You have led teams in a Forward Deployed Engineering, technical consulting, or heavily matrixed environment where talent is embedded in the business and still held to a central technical bar.
• You have defined, scaled, and maintained operational playbooks — intake standards, routing, and reusable delivery models — not just written a process doc.
• You can transform ambiguous processes (intake routing, priority rubrics, graduation gateways) into clear, repeatable frameworks that stick across teams.
• You have championed reusable assets, developer tooling (e.g. ADK/SDK patterns), and best practices that improve team-wide efficiency and long-term asset maintenance.
• You have owned operational governance across the delivery lifecycle, including compliance, cost telemetry (Cost of AI), and the path from prototype to production graduation.
• You have deep familiarity with modern LLM ecosystems, agentic workflows, and cloud data platforms (e.g. Databricks, Gemini, Claude, Cursor).
• You can evaluate business requests with discernment — distinguishing agile, low-effort optimization wins (days/weeks) from intensive initiatives that belong on a product roadmap (months/years).
• You have exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to simplify complex AI paradigms into tangible operational value for non-technical stakeholders.
• You have experience measuring engineering ROI and managing vendor/licensing or infrastructure cost in a production environment.

Additional Experience

• Experience rolling out an intake + routing model in a matrixed enterprise (what the team takes vs. routes to product, platform, or decline), with a visible backlog and an SLA on triage.
• Hands-on delivery of agents, automation, or internal platforms on Databricks, Gemini Enterprise, Claude, Airtable, and/or Cursor.
• Experience standing up a reuse path (starter kits, ADK/SDK, asset marketplace) and a written production-ownership / graduate-or-retire standard.
• Music, media, or entertainment industry experience, or prior work supporting functions such as Finance, HR, or creative/label operations.
• Comfort operating as a player-coach: close enough to the technical work to set standards, without needing to be the strongest coder on the team.

As the home to 10K Projects, Asylum, Atlantic Music Group, East West, FFRR, Fueled by Ramen, Nonesuch, Parlophone, Rhino, Roadrunner, Sire, Warner Records, Warner Classics, and several other of the world’s premier recording labels, Warner Music Group champions emerging artists and global superstars alike. And our renowned publishing company, Warner Chappell Music, represents genre-spanning songwriters and producers through a catalog of more than one million copyrights worldwide. Warner Music Group is also home to ADA, which supports the independent community, as well as artist services division WMX. In addition, WMG counts film and television storytelling powerhouse Warner Music Entertainment among its many brands.

Together, we are Warner Music Group: Independent Minds. Major Sound.

WMG is committed to inclusion and diversity in all aspects of our business. We’re proud to be an equal-opportunity workplace and will evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, religious creed, color, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, marital status, medical condition as defined by state law (genetic characteristics or cancer), physical or mental disability, military service or veteran status, pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions, genetic information or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local law.

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