Forward Deployment Manager

Tactical Edge; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Tactical Edge is seeking a Forward Deployment Manager to drive AI deployment programs from field discovery through adoption and production rollout. You will coordinate cross-functional teams across product, engineering, AI, security, and partners, including AWS, to keep field execution predictable and outcomes measurable.

You will translate customer goals into deployment plans, milestones, success metrics, and adoption targets, manage risk and dependencies, and ensure production readiness with

Qualifications

• Experience leading complex software, cloud, data, or AI deployment programs in enterprise environments.
• Strong stakeholder management and executive communication skills.
• Ability to coordinate technical teams and understand system constraints and adoption blockers.
• Familiarity with agile delivery, phased rollouts, and PoC/pilot motions.
• Ability to manage risk, dependencies, ambiguity, and customer change management calmly.

Responsibilities

• Lead embedded AI deployment programs from workflow discovery through adoption and production rollout.
• Translate customer operating goals into deployment plans, milestones, dependencies, success metrics, and adoption targets.
• Coordinate deployment engineers, product, AI engineering, security, AWS partners, and customer stakeholders.
• Prioritize high-value workflow opportunities and keep teams focused on measurable productivity, quality, and outcomes.
• Ensure production readiness across evaluation, security review, governance, documentation, enablement, and handoff.
• Drive adoption of reusable AI workflow patterns, templates, and operational playbooks across customer teams.
• Maintain clear status reporting, decision logs, risk registers, and deployment metrics for customer and internal leadership.
• Turn field learnings into repeatable delivery motions that make each deployment faster and more reliable.

Job description

The Forward Deployment Manager ensures AI solutions move from field discovery to production adoption smoothly, aligning stakeholders, managing scope, timeline, risk, deployment metrics, and customer enablement. You will coordinate cross-functionally with product, engineering, AI, security, customer teams, and partners including AWS to keep field execution predictable and outcomes measurable.

What You'll Do

• Lead embedded AI deployment programs from workflow discovery through adoption and production rollout.
• Translate customer operating goals into deployment plans, milestones, dependencies, success metrics, and adoption targets.
• Coordinate forward deployment engineers, product, AI engineering, security, AWS partners, and customer stakeholders.
• Prioritize high-value workflow opportunities and keep teams focused on measurable productivity, quality, and operational outcomes.
• Ensure production readiness across evaluation, security review, governance, documentation, enablement, and handoff.
• Drive adoption of reusable AI workflow patterns, templates, and operational playbooks across customer teams.
• Maintain clear status reporting, decision logs, risk registers, and deployment metrics for customer and internal leadership.
• Turn field learnings into repeatable delivery motions that make each deployment faster and more reliable.

What We're Looking For

• Experience leading complex software, cloud, data, AI, or workflow transformation programs in enterprise environments.
• Strong stakeholder management and executive communication skills.
• Comfort coordinating technical teams and understanding system constraints, adoption blockers, and operating realities.
• Familiarity with agile delivery, phased rollouts, and PoC/pilot motions.
• Ability to manage risk, dependencies, ambiguity, and customer change management calmly.
• High ownership, structured thinking, and bias for action.
• Bonus: AWS delivery experience; AI/ML, agentic AI, operational analytics, or field engineering exposure.

How We Work

Outcome-driven

Enterprise-first

Agentic by design

Systems that reason and act safely

Small teams, high ownership

Autonomy with accountability

What You'll Get

• Enterprise-scale challenges and measurable impact
• Cross-functional collaboration and high ownership
• Flexible work setup where applicable

Hiring Process

1. Intro call

   Fit + context

2. Deployment case discussion

   Workflow, adoption, scope, risk

3. Cross-functional interview

   Product + Engineering + Customer delivery

4. Final conversation

   Leadership alignment

We value clarity, ownership, and thoughtful execution over buzzwords.