Forward Deployed Engineer Manager

SewerAI Corporation; United States; Remote; USD 160,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Unlimited PTO

Health benefits

401(k)

Job summary

SewerAI Corporation is seeking a Tech Lead Manager (TLM) to lead our Forward Deployed Engineering team in the United States. This player-coach role combines hands-on delivery with team building, owning customer relationships from kickoff to go-live and guiding complex integrations and data migrations.

You will design tooling, patterns and product feedback to scale deployments, while mentoring a small team and coordinating with IT, GIS and field crews to ensure successful outcomes.

Qualifications

• 5+ years as a Forward Deployed Engineer or similar hands-on, customer-facing technical role.
• 2+ years managing people or leading a technical team.
• You can read code, query data and find bugs yourself.
• You've shipped real customer integrations and migrations: APIs, enterprise systems, messy legacy data.
• You're excellent with customers: build trust quickly, communicate proactively, stay calm and credible when a project is going sideways.
• You've worked with non-technical customers and adjust communication without talking down to anyone.
• You can say “no” or “not yet” and keep the relationship intact.
• You stay hands-on and tackle the hardest problems yourself.
• You see patterns and build reusable solutions.
• You manage scope with clear timelines and honest status updates.
• You enjoy mentoring and rewarding others’ success.
• You’re comfortable with startup pace and self-authored processes to run projects.

Responsibilities

• Own the customer relationship from kickoff through go-live and handoff to Customer Success.
• Lead technical discovery with utility IT, GIS and operations teams and field crews; learn how they work before proposing SewerAI fits.
• Explain complex tradeoffs to non-technical stakeholders.
• Manage expectations, timelines, scope, and alternatives without harming relationships.
• Take ownership of escalations on at-risk accounts until resolved.
• Run kickoffs, workshops and go-live sessions with clear leadership updates.
• Lead from the keyboard on hard integrations, migrations and escalations; turn learnings into reusable patterns.
• Design and review integrations with CMMS, GIS and inspection platforms.
• Own end-to-end data migrations: extract, map, transform, validate, reconcile.

Skills

Python

JavaScript

Bash

SQL

ETL

REST APIs

AWS

AI coding tools

Data migrations

Tools

Cityworks

Cartegraph/OpenGov

Lucity

VUEWorks

ArcGIS/Esri

WinCan

ITpipes

Job description

About SewerAI Corporation

SewerAI is transforming underground infrastructure management through AI-powered inspection and risk analysis. Our platform helps contractors, engineering firms, and utilities unlock valuable insights from sewer inspection data—turning hours of manual video review into actionable intelligence in minutes. After doubling our customer base over the past year, we’re now entering an exciting phase of accelerated growth.

About the Role

We're looking for a Tech Lead Manager (TLM) to lead our Forward Deployed Engineering team. This is a player-coach role. The team is two full-time FDEs and a contractor today, and we're hiring more. You'll keep shipping yourself: writing integrations, debugging migrations, and leading the customer conversations that decide whether a deployment succeeds. You'll also build the team and the systems that let it scale.

Today, deployments run on a few people who carry the context in their heads. Your job is to change that. You'll take ownership of technical delivery quality, customer outcomes and team capacity. You'll also turn recurring custom work into reusable tools, patterns and product feedback.

What You Do

Customer ownership

• Own the customer relationship from kickoff through go-live and handoff to Customer Success. Customers should always know where things stand, what's next and what's at risk.

• Lead technical discovery with utility IT, GIS and operations teams, and with field crews. Learn how they actually work before proposing how SewerAI fits in.

• Explain complex technical tradeoffs in plain language to non-technical stakeholders, from field supervisors to public works directors.

• Manage expectations directly. Reset timelines, push back on scope that won't work and offer alternatives without damaging the relationship.

• Take ownership of escalations on at-risk accounts: get on the call, own the problem and follow through until it's fixed.

• Run kickoffs, workshops and go-live sessions. Write status updates that leadership, Sales and the customer can understand without someone explaining them.

Technical delivery

• Lead from the keyboard. Take on the hardest integrations, migrations and escalations yourself, then turn what you learn into patterns the team can reuse.

• Design and review integrations with CMMS (Cityworks, Cartegraph/OpenGov, Lucity, VUEWorks), GIS (ArcGIS/Esri) and inspection platforms (WinCan, ITpipes).

• Own data migrations end to end: extract, map, transform, validate and reconcile historical inspection, asset and media data. Expect missing fields, duplicates and schema drift.

• Build internal tooling such as scripts, ETL jobs, validation checks and deployment templates, so each new customer costs less than the last.

Team leadership

• Manage the team day to day: 1:1s, onboarding, performance reviews, project assignments and capacity planning.

• Run the FDE standup and make the prioritization calls across the live customer portfolio. Decide what gets built, phased, declined or handed to Product.

• Work with Sales and Solutions Engineering on scoping and technical feasibility before commitments are made.

• Bring recurring integration needs and implementation friction to Product and Engineering, with evidence, so services work becomes product.

• Help the team get better at technical work and at communicating with customers.

Who You Are

• You have 5+ years as a Forward Deployed Engineer or in a similar hands-on, customer-facing technical role, such as Professional Services, Solutions, Implementation or Field Engineering.

• You have 2+ years managing people or leading a technical team.

• Your technical foundation is strong. You can read the code, query the data and find the bug yourself.

• You've shipped real customer integrations and migrations: APIs, enterprise systems, messy legacy data.

• You're excellent with customers. You build trust quickly, communicate proactively, and stay calm and credible when a project is going sideways.

• You've worked with customers who aren't technically sophisticated, and you adjust how you communicate without talking down to anyone.

• You can tell a customer or an AE "no" or "not yet" and keep the relationship intact.

• You want to stay hands-on, and you take the hardest problems yourself rather than delegating them.

• You see patterns. A third request for the same custom work is your cue to build a reusable solution.

• You manage scope well: clear timelines, early risk calls and honest status updates.

• You like mentoring and are rewarded by other people's success.

• You're comfortable with startup pace, unclear ownership and processes you'll write yourself.

Technical Skills

• Scripting in Python, JavaScript or Bash

• Strong SQL and relational database fundamentals

• ETL workflows and large-scale data migrations

• REST APIs, JSON, webhooks and system integrations

• AWS (S3, Lambda, IAM)

• Troubleshooting across databases, APIs, files and UI

• Day-to-day use of AI coding tools

Good to Have

• NASSCO standards (PACP/MACP/LACP) and sewer inspection data

• GIS and spatial data: ArcGIS, ArcGIS REST services

• CMMS and asset management systems: Cityworks, Cartegraph/OpenGov, Lucity, VUEWorks

• Inspection platforms: WinCan, ITpipes

• Workflow orchestration (Temporal or similar) and integration platforms (Zapier, Celigo)

• Media and large-file ingestion pipelines, SFTP and file-based exchange

• Municipal utility, public sector or infrastructure customers

• Building delivery playbooks, estimation models or services catalogs from scratch

Compensation & Benefits

• Base salary: $160,000–$190,000, plus equity

• Medical, dental, vision, basic life and 401(k)

• Unlimited PTO

This role requires about 10% travel for customer kickoffs, workshops, go-lives and team offsites.

Why Join SewerAI?

Join the fastest-growing team in wastewater tech and help modernize critical infrastructure with AI. You’ll own high-visibility projects, influence how our brand meets the market, and see your work drive measurable impact for customers and communities.

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SewerAI is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to providing a workplace free from discrimination or harassment on the basis of age, disability, sex, race, religion or belief, gender reassignment, marriage/civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity, or sexual orientation. All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.