Head of Field Applications

ironsite-ai; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health plan

Dental & Vision

401(k) with match

Catered meals

Job summary

Ironsite, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is seeking a Head of Field Applications to lead both Forward Deployed Engineers and the Mobile Team. You’ll define embedding models with customers, own the craft-worker experience from onboarding to deployment, and ensure reliable, scalable mobile device management across sites.

You will recruit, mentor, and align engineering with hardware and AI teams, driving productization decisions and field reliability.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience.
• 3+ years of people management experience.
• Hands-on depth in mobile (iOS/Android) and shipping software that manages hardware in the field.
• Experience running or building a forward deployed engineering function.
• Strong product judgment: distinguishing customer asks from needs and when to productize.
• Comfort on active jobsites with craft workers’ trust in the software.
• High agency and comfort with ambiguity; you build processes and teams while shipping.

Responsibilities

• Build and lead the Field Applications engineering org (Forward deployed engineers and mobile team).
• Own the forward deployed engineering model and define embedding with customers.
• Own the craft worker experience end to end in mobile onboarding, check-out/in, and shift feedback.
• Own mobile device deployment at scale: provisioning, fleet management, OTA, telemetry, offline-first behavior.
• Drive productization decisions: when customer builds become platform features.
• Partner with hardware, firmware, platform, and AI teams on data flow from site to pipeline.
• Own field-facing reliability: fleet uptime, coverage, and deployment health.
• Represent the field in roadmap and architecture discussions.

Skills

People management

Mobile development (iOS/Android)

Forward deployed engineering

Product judgment

Field experience

Ambiguity tolerance

Job description

About Ironsite

Ironsite is building the intelligence layer for the physical world. We design our own wearable hardware, deploy it alongside craft workers, and transform a shift's footage into a next-morning report. Our internal team and purpose-built models label the data overnight and deliver actionable insights to superintendents by 5 AM.

We are accelerating the speed, efficiency, and predictability of construction, especially for complex, mission-critical infrastructure projects, including data centers, LNG facilities, sports stadiums, hospitals, and other large-scale developments, by training AI models on egocentric construction footage and labor productivity data. We are built with a pro-worker philosophy at our core: we believe technology should empower the workforce, not replace it. We're working to give craft workers and project leaders better visibility into what's happening on-site, while creating a system where the reality of construction and the chaos of each day is finally available to the people running the project.

Ironsite is deployed across several of the largest active construction projects in the country. To date, we've captured more than 100,000 hours of construction footage across seven states, now process thousands of hours of site activity every day, and maintain a worker opt-out rate below two percent. This is enabled by a workforce-first architecture that anonymizes devices, captures no audio, and never releases raw video.

Ironsite is backed by leading investors (8VC, South Park Commons, Saga Ventures) and prominent operators across technology and construction, including Eric Schmidt, Jeff Dean, Jeff Rothschild, Mark Leslie, Scott Wu, Eric Glyman, Karim Atiyeh, Russell Kaplan, and others, alongside over a dozen construction industry operators who have joined us as partners in building this.

Longer term, we believe Ironsite is the foundation for what construction becomes in the next decade. We think the systems we’re building are the operating system for how the physical world gets built, and will unlock a fundamentally different way of respect for our workforce. One where craft workers are more valued, more visible, and better paid for the skill they bring, and where the industry finally has the intelligence layer that makes autonomous construction possible. Both futures start with the same foundation.

The Role

As Head of Field Applications, you’ll lead the engineering organization that owns everything a craft worker or superintendent touches. That means two teams:

• Forward Deployed Engineers, who embed with customers on active jobsites and build what each project needs to get value from Ironsite
• Mobile Team, who build the craft worker experience and the software that provisions, manages, and monitors thousands of devices in the field

This is an engineering leadership role. You’ll hire and manage engineers, set technical direction for mobile and device management, decide what gets built as a one-off for a customer versus productized for everyone, and be accountable for the software that runs at 5:30 AM in a laydown yard with no Wi‑Fi. You’ll report to the CTO and partner closely with hardware, platform, and AI leads.

We’ve assembled a team that hasn’t existed in construction before. Hardware engineers from Oculus, Fitbit, and Apple. Research engineers from DeepMind, Etched, and Anduril. Software engineers from Meta, NVIDIA, and Google. Construction veterans from Turner, DPR Construction, and Pacific Structures. Your job is to build the engineering team that puts all of that in front of the people on the jobsite.

What You’ll Do

• Build and lead the Field Applications engineering org. Forward deployed engineers and the mobile/device software team. Hire, manage, grow, and set the bar
• Own the forward deployed engineering model. Define how FDEs embed with customers, scope and deliver project‑specific integrations and workflows, and feed what they learn back into the core product
• Own the craft worker experience end to end. The mobile app workers and foremen use for onboarding, opt‑in, device check‑out and check‑in, and shift‑level feedback. Make it fast, obvious, and trusted by people who don’t want another app
• Own mobile device deployment at scale. Provisioning, fleet management, OTA updates, telemetry, and offline‑first behavior across thousands of devices on sites with unreliable connectivity
• Drive the productization decision. Recognize when a customer‑specific build should become a platform feature, and when it shouldn’t
• Partner across the org. With hardware and firmware on the device‑to‑app boundary, and with platform and AI teams on how captured data flows from the site into the pipeline
• Own field‑facing reliability. Define and track fleet uptime, capture coverage, app adoption and deployment health. Be on the hook when they slip
• Represent the field in roadmap and architecture discussions. You’re the voice in the room for what actually works on a jobsite

What We’re Looking For

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with 3+ years managing engineers, ideally including managers or multiple teams
• Hands‑on depth in mobile (iOS/Android) and experience shipping software that manages hardware in the field: device provisioning, MDM, OTA, telemetry, or fleet management
• Experience running or building a forward deployed engineering function, or equivalent customer-embedded engineering work where you owned outcomes on the customer's turf
• Strong product judgment. You can tell the difference between what a customer asks for and what they need, and between a one‑off and a platform feature
• Comfort on active jobsites and real respect for craft workers. You’ll spend time in the field, and the software you own has to earn a crew’s trust
• High agency and comfort with ambiguity. You build the process and the team while shipping

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior FDE, solutions engineering, or deployment engineering leadership at a hardware‑plus‑software company (wearables, robotics, IoT, cameras, or industrial systems)
• Experience with offline‑first mobile architecture and sync in low‑connectivity environments
• Exposure to construction, energy, manufacturing, or other industrial customers
• Experience with computer vision, video processing, or AI‑enabled applications, given how our data pipeline connects to the field app

What Success Looks Like

• First 90 days: You’ve assessed the current forward‑deployed and mobile teams, identified the top three technical and organizational gaps, and set the roadmap for closing them. You’ve been on‑site at our two flagship projects and have a first‑hand read on what’s actually working
• First 6 months: You’ve hired 2–3 senior engineers and stabilized the mobile release cadence to weekly. Fleet uptime, capture coverage, and app adoption are trending consistently up quarter over quarter. FDE‑to‑platform productization has become a defined operating rhythm rather than an ad hoc conversation
• First 12 months: The Field Applications org is a clear function within Engineering, with its own hiring bar, technical standards, and platform impact. You’re a critical voice in Ironsite’s product and engineering strategy, and you’ve built something the whole team looks to for how customer‑facing engineering should work

Location, Compensation, & Perks

• San Francisco Bay Area (on‑site)
• Base salary: $200k‑$300k per year, commensurate with experience
• Meaningful early‑stage team equity.
• Full benefits including health, dental, vision, and 401(k) with 6% match
• Daily catered breakfast and lunch
• Office in San Francisco, next to Oracle Park and the Caltrain

Final compensation is determined by experience, location, and level.

Compensation

The base pay range for this role is $200,000 – $300,000 per year.