Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)

NextBigWhat; New York (MO); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 175,000; Full time

Job summary

NextBigWhat is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to lead AI deployments for consumer brands in a hybrid role based in New York City. You will own brand deployments from kickoff to execution, partnering with founders and executives to solve data and business problems using Claude Code, SQL and automated workflows.

You will guide engagements, set agendas, and drive solutions that scale across multiple brands, with opportunities to renew and expand as the product matures.

Qualifications

• Experience leading AI deployments for consumer brands.
• Ability to frame business problems and define success.
• Comfort collaborating with founders, ops leads and growth marketers.
• Skilled with AI tools to build workflows and agents.

Responsibilities

• Solve hard data problems and make numbers trusted.
• Lead engagements with clear agendas and outcomes.
• Set up the foundation by connecting platforms to data.
• Tailor AI workflows for each brand and schedule automation.
• Steer implementation partners and manage timelines.
• Turn field learnings into reusable product workflows.
• Ensure ongoing value, renewals, and expansion.

Skills

Brand knowledge

Product mindset

Consultative approach

AI workflow building

Data literacy

Customer engagement

Project management

Job description

Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)

We're hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to lead AI deployments at consumer brands and solve the data and business problems they've never been able to crack. You think like a CPG operator and a product person, and you build with AI every day.

The role

Every company is trying to deploy AI, and most consumer brands stall on the hard part: messy data and business problems nobody has cracked. As an FDE, you walk into a brand as the lead for its AI deployment and solve a problem it has never been able to solve.

You own a set of brands from kickoff until their team runs real work in Drivepoint without us. Depending on the customer, you may stay on as their partner through the year: new problems, new workflows, renewal and expansion. You report to our Head of Product and work hybrid in New York City.

What you'll do

• Solve the hard data problems. Shopify orders that don't tie to the books, a channel counted twice, retailer data that arrives as five different files, SKUs named three ways. You find out why, fix it, and make the numbers trusted.
• Crack business problems they've never answered. Which retailer actually makes money after trade spend? Can we call this month's wholesale close from open POs before it hits the books? Where is cash stuck in inventory? You frame the question, find the data that answers it, and get the answer into their hands.
• Lead the engagement. Open every session with an agenda and what the customer will walk away with. Ask what decision they're trying to make before anything gets built. Close with owners and dates, and drive the plan until it runs without you.
• Set up the foundation. Connect Shopify, Amazon, TikTok Shop, retailers, 3PLs, ad platforms and the books with customers and their agencies. Capture their account mappings, SKU conventions and naming so every answer comes back in their language.
• Put AI to work. Tailor workflows from our library to the brand and schedule them to run on their own, in our app, in Claude or ChatGPT, or in the tools they build, with the right permissions.
• Steer implementation partners. Brief partners on custom builds, keep them on schedule, and check their work before the customer sees it.
• Turn field work into product. When a problem repeats across brands, build the fix into a reusable workflow with Claude Code and bring the evidence to the product team.

What "engineer" means here

This isn't a traditional software engineering role, and it isn't a sales role. You build every day, mostly with AI: Claude Code, skills and automated workflows, SQL against a brand's data, and light scripting when it's the fastest way through. The hard part is knowing what to build and why.

What success looks like

• First 30 days: you shadow live engagements, learn our stack and workflow library, and run your first customer sessions with support.
• By 90 days: you lead your own set of brands, each with trusted data and at least one problem solved that it couldn't solve before.
• Ongoing: your brands get to value fast, use Drivepoint without us, and renew and expand. The patterns you find show up in the product.

What you bring

• You know how a whole consumer brand works. Not just the P&L: channel economics, retail vs. DTC, trade spend, weeks of supply, CAC and retention, landed cost. You talk to a founder, an ops lead and a growth marketer in their own terms.
• You think like a product person. You start from the user's problem and the outcome, you can tell when the ask isn't the need, and you notice when ten customers want the same thing.
• You're consultative. You set agendas, ask the clarifying question everyone skipped, and turn a messy conversation into a crisp scope.
• You build with AI. You use Claude Code or similar tools to build workflows, skills or agents that other people actually use. MCP, connectors and permissions don't scare you.
• You're technical enough. You understand how data moves from Shopify to a warehouse to a report, can read SQL, and can figure out why two numbers don't match.
• You're great with customers. Comfortable leading sessions with founders and execs; clear, warm, direct writing.
• You keep many things moving. Several brands and partners at once, no dropped threads.
• You're financially literate. You read a P&L and spot a forecast that doesn't make sense. You don't need to build three-statement models from scratch.

Nice to have

• You've founded, launched or run a consumer brand
• Consulting, agency or implementation background
• SQL or BigQuery
• Hands-on with Shopify, Amazon, retailer, 3PL or ad platform data
• You've built an internal tool or app for a team

Interview process ~ final interview schedule can still change

• Intro call (30 min) with our Head of Product. Bring something you've built with AI and walk us through it.
• Business deep dive (45 min). Pick a consumer brand you know well. How does it make money by channel, where do margin and inventory leak, and which three problems would you solve first?
• Data problem (45 min). We give you two numbers that should match and don't. Talk us through how you find out why.
• Mock kickoff (60 min). We hand you an anonymized brand. You run the first 30 minutes as if we were the customer: agenda, questions, what we'll walk away with. Then you write the plan: data to connect, context to capture, the first problems to solve, and a partner brief if one is needed.
• Meet the team and our CEO.

Compensation and logistics

• Base salary: $140K–$175K
• Standard benefits package
• Hybrid in New York City; customer work is remote, no travel required
• Reports to the Head of Product

Drivepoint is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome people of every background and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or any other protected characteristic.