About the Forward Deployed Engineering Team

Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) at Rox is where product, engineering, and customers converge.

FDEs embed directly into customer environments to solve high-impact problems: integrating Rox into complex GTM stacks, shaping real-world implementations, and translating customer needs back into product direction. This is not a support function and not traditional consulting - it's applied engineering with ownership.

The FDE Lead role exists to scale this function: setting standards, leading a small but critical team, and ensuring Rox's most strategic customers see real value fast.

About the Role

This is a player-coach leadership role.

As FDE Lead, you will own the execution and evolution of the Forward Deployed Engineering function. You'll lead a small team of FDEs while remaining hands-on with customers, especially in the highest-stakes engagements.

You'll partner most closely with Sales and Engineering, ensuring customer implementations are technically sound, scalable, and aligned with Rox's long-term product strategy. The patterns you establish - how projects are scoped, how technical decisions are made, how feedback flows - will define how FDE operates as Rox grows.

This role is ideal for someone with strong technical depth, experience leading complex client-facing projects, and a bias toward building durable systems rather than one-off solutions.

How Your Time Breaks Down

• 40% Functional Execution - hands-on technical work, architecture, integrations, and delivery
• 30% Client-Facing - leading customer engagements, technical discovery, and solution design
• 30% Team Leadership - mentoring FDEs, setting standards, and scaling the function

What You'll Do
Lead & Scale the FDE Function

• Lead a growing team of Forward Deployed Engineers
• Set technical and execution standards for customer deployments
• Establish repeatable patterns for scoping, delivery, and handoff
• Coach and mentor FDEs on both technical depth and customer execution

Own Strategic Customer Engagements

• Act as technical lead on complex or high-stakes customer projects
• Partner with Sales on pre- and post-sale technical strategy
• Lead deep technical discovery to uncover real customer constraints
• Ensure customer implementations are scalable, secure, and maintainable

Drive Cross-Functional Execution

• Work closely with Engineering to influence roadmap and product decisions
• Translate customer learnings into clear, actionable feedback
• Align with Sales on deal strategy, feasibility, and delivery timelines
• Help ensure Rox's technical promises are grounded in reality

Build for the Long Term

• Identify where custom work should become product
• Reduce friction and toil through better tooling and patterns
• Raise the technical bar across customer deployments

What Success Looks Like

• First 3 days: You've deeply internalized Rox's product, architecture, and customer use cases
• First 3 weeks: You're actively leading the FDE team and owning key customer engagements
• First 3 months: The FDE function is scaling cleanly - clearer standards, stronger execution, and better feedback loops into Product and Engineering

Must-Have Qualifications

• Experience leading technical, client-facing teams (FDE, Solutions Engineering, Consulting, or similar)
• Strong hands-on engineering background (Python, React, SQL)
• Experience leading complex technical projects end-to-end
• Comfort operating across Sales, Engineering, and Product
• Ability to translate ambiguity into execution
• Strong communication skills with both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Nice-to-Have Background

• Prior experience in consulting or forward-deployed engineering models
• Familiarity with Palantir-style or embedded engineering patterns
• Experience scaling early-stage technical teams
• Exposure to modern data stacks, analytics, or AI-driven systems

Why This Role Exists

Rox is growing quickly, and customer execution is a core competitive advantage. This role exists to ensure that as we scale, our Forward Deployed Engineering function scales with clarity, rigor, and impact - not chaos.

If you're excited about leading real engineers, solving real problems, and shaping how a critical function operates at a defining moment, this is a rare opportunity to do exactly that.