Head of Forward Deployed Engineering — Scale & Impact

Fdetimes; New York (NY); On-site; USD 269,000 - 403,000; Full time

Job summary

Snorkel AI is seeking a deeply technical leader to head Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE). You will shape the function’s direction, drive execution, and scale the team from 40 to 100+ engineers, owning data pipelines and delivery quality.

You will set architectural direction and ensure reuse across teams, balancing customer needs with engineering rigor. You will partner with Research and Platform/Engineering to turn investments into reusable, scalable solutions while coaching managers and tech

Qualifications

• 10+ years in software or ML engineering, with 5+ years leading multiple teams as a manager of managers.
• Experience scaling an engineering org of ~100 engineers, managing planning and strategy.
• Strong technical fluency and experience with LLM stacks, agents, orchestration and ML pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Lead and scale the FDE organization: set vision, operating model, and align plans with company priorities.
• Drive hiring in hypergrowth: build bench of EMs and tech leads as the org grows to 100+ engineers.
• Coach EMs and TLMs to grow from project owners to cross-functional leaders.
• Drive reuse across the org by standardizing pipelines and collaborating with Platform Engineering.
• Set engineering standards for pipeline design, data evaluation, and delivery sign-off.
• Establish FDE as the final gate for data quality and customer requirements.
• Own pipeline cost, performance, throughput, latency, and forecasts.
• Stay deep in architecture reviews and propose meaningful changes.

Skills

Leadership experience

ML infra

People management

Job description

Snorkel AI is seeking a deeply technical leader to head Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE). You will shape the function’s direction, drive execution, and scale the team from 40 to 100+ engineers, owning data pipelines and delivery quality.

You will set architectural direction and ensure reuse across teams, balancing customer needs with engineering rigor. You will partner with Research and Platform/Engineering to turn investments into reusable, scalable solutions while coaching managers and tech