Founding Head of Forward Deployed Engineering — Drive GTM Wins

Invoca; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 200,000 - 275,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits – Day One

Mental wellbeing support

Wellness subsidy

Flexible time off

Paid holidays

Paid family leave

Paid medical leave

401(k) with company match

Stock options

Sabbatical after seven years

Job summary

Invoca is seeking a Founding Head of Forward Deployed Engineering to build and lead a team of engineers embedded in our Go-to-Market motion. You will hire, coach, and prioritize deals that require engineering support, shaping how deals and onboarding progress from technical evaluation to value realization.

In this player-coach role, you will own headcount planning, act as the escalation point on strategic deals, and partner with Sales, Solutions Engineering, and Customer Success to align

Qualifications

• Experience as Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Engineer, or similar customer-facing technical role.
• People management experience or leadership in a technical capacity.
• Strong business judgment to decide whether a deal warrants engineering time.
• Ability to navigate intersections of Sales, Product, and Engineering.
• Track record turning bespoke customer work into repeatable processes.
• Excellent executive communication with sales and leadership.

Responsibilities

• Hire, coach, and manage a team of Forward Deployed Engineers; set the bar for what great looks like in a customer-facing technical role.
• Triage and prioritize FDE deployment across the deal pipeline; decide opportunities needing dedicated technical support.
• Act as senior technical escalation point on strategic deals and implementations, stepping in when stakes are highest.
• Partner with Sales, Solutions Engineering, and Customer Success to define where FDEs plug into the sales and onboarding motion.
• Build the operating rhythm for the team: PoCs, debriefs, and reusable assets.
• Provide feedback from field to product; translate deals into actionable requests for leadership.
• Report on team impact: deals influenced, time-to-value, win rates on contested deals.
• Manage headcount planning and capacity for growth and geographic/specialization needs.

Skills

FDE experience

People management

Business judgment

Cross-functional collaboration

Executive communication

Job description

Invoca is seeking a Founding Head of Forward Deployed Engineering to build and lead a team of engineers embedded in our Go-to-Market motion. You will hire, coach, and prioritize deals that require engineering support, shaping how deals and onboarding progress from technical evaluation to value realization.

In this player-coach role, you will own headcount planning, act as the escalation point on strategic deals, and partner with Sales, Solutions Engineering, and Customer Success to align