Head of Forward Deployment Engineering

The role

As Head of Forward Deployed Engineering, you'll inherit and lead a growing team of Forward Deployed Engineers while building the operating model for the next stage of scale. You'll establish how the organization hires, executes, prioritizes, and measures success, while remaining hands-on with our most strategic customer engagements. You'll partner closely with the executive team on enterprise strategy, product direction, and high-impact technical initiatives across the business.

Overview

Forward Deployed Engineering owns how Tavily shows up technically in the field. The function sits at the intersection of enterprise customers, Product, Engineering, Sales, Customer Success, and strategic initiatives across the business. Its charter is to lead the technical execution of Tavily's most strategic customer initiatives—from discovery and POCs through production rollout and expansion—serving as the company's senior technical force for the highest-impact opportunities in the field.

Location

You're welcome to work remotely from within the United States, with regular presence in New York City as needed.

We expect you to have:

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including significant experience in customer-facing technical roles such as Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Architect, Solutions Engineer, or Sales Engineer.
• 4+ years building or leading customer-facing engineering teams, including hiring, coaching, performance management, and organizational scaling.
• Strong hands-on engineering ability in Python, APIs, distributed systems, and modern software architecture.
• Deep experience designing and building production AI systems, including LLM applications, agentic workflows, retrieval architectures, evaluation systems, and the infrastructure required to operate them reliably at scale.
• Strong familiarity with the modern AI application stack, including agent orchestration frameworks, retrieval infrastructure, evaluation tooling, and production deployment patterns.
• Proven track record leading the technical side of enterprise engagements from initial architecture discussions through successful production deployment and expansion.
• Strong business and commercial judgment, with the ability to balance customer outcomes, engineering investment, and company priorities when making technical and organizational decisions.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills across executive, technical, and developer audiences.
• A builder's mindset with the ability to create structure, operating rhythms, and scalable playbooks in fast-moving, ambiguous environments.
• Based in New York City or willing to relocate, or able to maintain a strong presence with the team and customers.

It will be an added bonus if you have:

• Previous experience leading a Forward Deployed Engineering, Solutions Architecture, Solutions Engineering, or Professional Services organization.
• Experience scaling a customer-facing engineering function through rapid company growth.
• Open-source contributions to AI infrastructure, agent frameworks, retrieval systems, or evaluation tooling.
• Experience speaking at developer conferences or publishing technical content on AI systems, agents, or LLM applications.
• Domain expertise in industries such as financial services, legal, enterprise SaaS, consulting, or AI infrastructure.
• Experience collaborating with model providers, AI platforms, or strategic technology partners.

Key Employee Benefits:

• Health Insurance: 100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and families.
• 401(k) Plan: Up to 4% company match with immediate vesting.
• Parental Leave: 20 weeks paid for primary caregivers, 12 weeks for secondary caregivers.
• Remote Work Reimbursement: Up to $85/month for mobile and internet.
• Disability & Life Insurance: Company-paid short-term, long-term, and life insurance coverage.

Pay Transparency

We offer competitive compensation and benefits packages. Actual compensation will be determined based on job-related factors, including experience, skills, qualifications, the level at which the candidate is hired, and geographic location, consistent with applicable law.

Base Compensation Range $230,000 - $310,000 USD