Founding Head of Customer-Facing AI Engineering

Invoca; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 275,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

401(k)

Sabbatical

Job summary

Invoca is seeking a Founding Head of Forward Deployed Engineering to lead a team embedded with our Go-to-Market motion. You will hire and coach FDEs, prioritize deals needing engineering support, and serve as the escalation point when stakes are highest.

This early-stage leadership role combines people management with direct revenue impact. In this role, you’ll influence pipeline outcomes, ensure repeatable onboarding, and drive product and engineering alignment with field feedback.

Qualifications

• Experience as Forward Deployed Engineer or similar customer-facing technical role.
• People management or leadership in a technical, customer-facing capacity.
• Excellent executive communication with sales and company leadership.
• Strong business judgment to discern which deals merit engineering involvement.

Responsibilities

• Hire, coach, and manage a team of Forward Deployed Engineers; set the bar for what great looks like.
• Triage and prioritize FDE deployment across the deal pipeline and opportunities.
• Act as senior technical escalation point on strategic or at-risk deals and implementations.
• Partner with Sales, Solutions Engineering, and Customer Success to define FDE integration into sales/onboarding.
• Build team operating rhythm for PoCs, debriefs, and reusable assets.
• Provide feedback to product/engineering leadership based on field input from deals.
• Report on team impact: deals influenced, time-to-value, win rates in contested deals.
• Plan headcount and capacity growth across geographies/specializations.
• Up to 50% on-site with customers during implementation.

Skills

People management

Customer-facing tech

Executive communication

Business judgment

Technical leadership

Job description

Invoca is seeking a Founding Head of Forward Deployed Engineering to lead a team embedded with our Go-to-Market motion. You will hire and coach FDEs, prioritize deals needing engineering support, and serve as the escalation point when stakes are highest.

This early-stage leadership role combines people management with direct revenue impact. In this role, you’ll influence pipeline outcomes, ensure repeatable onboarding, and drive product and engineering alignment with field feedback.