Forward Deployed Engineering Leader

Why this role matters

First Resonance builds the ION Factory OS — the operating system powering next-generation manufacturing for companies building rockets, satellites, eVTOLs, clean energy systems, robotics, and autonomous vehicles.

Forward Deployed Engineering is where our product, customers, and commercial outcomes meet. The team works inside complex manufacturing environments to turn ambiguous operational problems into deployed software, successful go-lives, and lasting customer value. We are hiring a Forward Deployed Engineering Leader to lead and scale that function.

This is not a delivery-coordination role. You will be a technical and people leader accountable for the quality of the team, the health of the deployment portfolio, and the business outcomes created by FDE work. You will coach engineers, shape architecture and delivery decisions, step into critical customer situations, and build the operating system that lets the team grow without losing speed or ownership.

What you’ll own

Build and lead an exceptional FDE team:

Hire, onboard, coach, and retain engineers across levels; set clear expectations; give direct feedback; and create meaningful paths for technical and leadership growth.

Own the deployment portfolio:

Set priorities, staffing, capacity, milestones, and risk management across concurrent customer engagements, ensuring high-quality delivery and measurable customer outcomes.

Raise the technical and delivery bar:

Establish standards for discovery, architecture, implementation, testing, go-live, documentation, production support, and deployment reviews.

Lead critical customer moments:

Serve as an executive and technical escalation point for strategic deployments, complex integrations, production incidents, and high-stakes tradeoffs.

Connect delivery to growth:

Partner with Sales and Customer Success on technical discovery, scoping, expansion strategy, and account planning so FDE capacity produces durable adoption and revenue.

Turn field learning into leverage:

Create a tight feedback loop with Product and Engineering, productize repeatable customer solutions, improve FDE tooling and automation, and evolve the team’s operating model as the company scales.

You will lead through managers and senior individual contributors over time, but you must remain close enough to the work to recognize strong architecture, challenge assumptions, and help the team make sound decisions in unfamiliar customer environments.

What we’re looking for

• 8+ years of relevant experience in software engineering, forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, technical consulting, or enterprise implementation, including 3+ years managing engineers.
• A track record of building and developing high-performing technical teams while improving both delivery predictability and engineering quality.
• Strong technical judgment across modern software systems, APIs, integrations, data pipelines, cloud infrastructure, security, and production operations.
• Experience owning a portfolio of complex, customer-facing technical programs from discovery through go-live and ongoing operation.
• Executive-level communication and commercial judgment: you can align customers and internal leaders, manage scope and risk, and connect technical choices to adoption, expansion, and revenue.
• Nice to have
• Experience leading forward deployed, solutions architecture, professional services, implementation engineering, or technical account teams.
• Experience with manufacturing, aerospace, defense, energy, industrial software, ERP, PLM, MES, or other operationally complex domains.
• Evidence of scaling a technical services or deployment function while increasing repeatability, margins, or revenue contribution.
• Experience partnering with Product and Engineering to turn customer-specific work into reusable platform capabilities.
• Familiarity with enterprise security, regulated environments, air-gapped networks, and high-availability production systems.