Forward Deployed Engineer - Lead

Accenture; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 163,000 - 434,000; Full time

Job summary

Accenture is seeking a senior delivery leader for Forward Deployment Engineering in North America to drive governance, planning, and operational rigor across active Reinvention AI deployments.

You will partner with client IT, infrastructure, and architecture teams to ensure successful handover, scalable delivery, and continuous improvement of delivery assets.

Qualifications

• 12+ years in technology delivery and program management.
• 2+ years designing or operationalizing Generative AI in enterprise environments.
• 1+ year implementing AI agent frameworks or multi-agent orchestration.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end delivery governance across NA client deployments.
• Build integrated delivery plans, milestone tracking frameworks, dependencies, risk registers.
• Establish operating rhythms across the FDE team and client counterparts.
• Lead pre-engagement discovery with client IT/infra teams; assess readiness (AWS, VPC, SSO, security).
• Create and improve deployment runbooks, playbooks, and reusable artifacts.
• Identify gaps; partner with Platform Engineering to drive automation and standardization.
• Produce executive delivery health reports; manage risk escalations and go/no-go decisions.
• Coach program managers and senior engineers; coordinate capacity across engagements.
• Serve as escalation point for delivery risk and blockers requiring senior leadership.

Skills

Delivery leadership

Program management

Cloud deployment

Client engagement

Stakeholder management

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Associate’s degree with 6+ years

Tools

LangGraph

LangChain

AutoGen

Kubernetes (EKS)

Terraform/OpenTofu

GitHub Actions

Job description

We Are:

Accenture is a global professional services company that helps the world’s leading organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth, and enhance services — creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent- and innovation-led company with 750,000+ people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world’s leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships.

We Are:

Accenture is a global professional services company that helps the world’s leading organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth, and enhance services — creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent- and innovation-led company with 750,000+ people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world’s leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships.

Our Reinvention AI (RIAI) practice sits at the leading edge of enterprise agentic AI. We help organizations move from natural language business conversations to structured, AI-orchestrated execution plans — deploying multi-agent systems, durable workflow orchestration, and enterprise-grade governance on AWS. The Forward Deployment Engineering (FDE) team is the specialist group that brings RIAI to life in enterprise client environments, from infrastructure provisioning through production handover. We are growing our North America FDE team and are looking for a senior delivery and technology leader to drive this next phase.

You Are:

A seasoned technology delivery leader who thrives at the intersection of enterprise platform deployment, program governance, and client engagement. You bring deep experience managing complex, multi-workstream technology implementations in cloud and client-hosted environments — and you are energized by the challenge of building scalable delivery practices in fast-moving, ambiguous contexts. You are as comfortable presenting delivery health to a client CIO as you are in a detailed infrastructure architecture discussion with an engineering team. You take ownership naturally, communicate proactively, and build the kind of trust with clients and internal stakeholders that keeps complex programs on track. You think like a product team — building assets and practices that compound in value over time — and you care deeply about making every deployment better than the last.

The Work:

As Associate Director, Forward Deployment Engineering — North America, you will be the delivery and program management backbone of the NA FDE team, owning governance, planning, and operational rigor across all active RIAI client deployments. Key responsibilities include:

• Lead end-to-end delivery governance across active Reinvention AI client deployments in North America — from mobilization and environment setup through integration validation and operational handover
• Build and maintain integrated delivery plans, milestone tracking frameworks, dependency maps, and risk registers for each client engagement
• Establish and own operating rhythms — standups, deployment reviews, executive status reporting, escalation protocols — across the FDE team and with client counterparts
• Lead pre-engagement discovery with client IT, infrastructure, and architecture teams; own the client readiness assessment process covering AWS accounts, VPC and networking, identity and SSO, DNS, model access, and security posture
• Drive creation and continuous improvement of deployment runbooks, operational playbooks, and reusable delivery artifacts — capturing lessons learned from every engagement and feeding them back into the team’s approach
• Identify manual steps and gaps across the deployment sequence; partner with Platform Engineering to drive automation and standardization
• Produce and deliver executive delivery health reports for Accenture and client leadership; facilitate high-stakes sessions including risk escalations, go/no-go decisions, and operational handover discussions
• Lead, coach, and mentor program managers and senior engineers on the FDE team; coordinate resource planning and capacity across concurrent client engagements
• Serve as the NA FDE team’s primary escalation point for delivery risk, stakeholder alignment, and execution blockers requiring senior leadership engagement

Travel may be required for this role. The amount of travel will vary from 25% to 75% depending on business need and client requirements.

Here’s What You Need:

• Minimum of 12 years of experience in technology delivery management, technical program management, or enterprise platform implementation, including cloud platform deployments, infrastructure provisioning, and cross-functional team leadership in a professional services or systems integration environment
• Minimum of 2 years of experience designing, deploying, or operationalizing Generative AI solutions, including prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), or fine-tuning of large language models (LLMs) in enterprise environments
• Minimum of 1 year of experience implementing AI agent frameworks or agentic workflow integrations, including multi-agent orchestration, tool use, or LLM-based automation pipelines (e.g., LangGraph, LangChain, AutoGen, or equivalent)
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent (minimum 12 years) work experience. (If Associate’s Degree, must have minimum 6 years work experience)

Bonus Points If You Have:

• Experience deploying platforms on AWS using Kubernetes (EKS), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform or OpenTofu), and GitHub Actions CI/CD workflows
• Familiarity with enterprise identity and SSO configuration (Keycloak, Okta, or Microsoft Entra ID) in multi-tenant environments
• PMP, SAFe Practitioner, or equivalent program management certification
• AWS Cloud Practitioner certification or higher
• Experience with agentic AI platforms such as LangGraph, Temporal.io, or MCP-based tool orchestration
• Prior experience in a forward deployment engineering or specialist implementation team within a technology consulting or professional services firm

Compensation at Accenture varies depending on a wide array of factors, which may include but are not limited to the specific office location, role, skill set, and level of experience. As required by local law, Accenture provides a reasonable range of compensation for roles that may be hired as set forth below.

We anticipate this job posting will be posted until 11/30/2026.

Accenture offers a market competitive suite of benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, and long-term disability coverage, a 401(k) plan, bonus opportunities, paid holidays, and paid time off. See more information on our benefits here:

U.S. Employee Benefits | Accenture

Role Location Annual Salary Range

• California $163,000 to $434,000
• Colorado $163,000 to $375,000
• Connecticut $163,000 to $375,000
• District of Columbia $173,500 to $399,300
• Illinois $150,900 to $375,000
• Maine $138,800 to $319,400
• Maryland $163,000 to $375,000
• Massachusetts $163,000 to $399,300
• Minnesota $163,000 to $375,000
• New York $150,900 to $434,000
• New Jersey $173,500 to $434,000
• Ohio $150,900 to $347,200
• Virginia $150,900 to $399,300
• Washington $173,500 to $399,300

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