Forward Deployed Engineering Manager

Forward Deployed Engineering Role

This isn't a professional services hire. It's the person who builds a new function from zero and sets the standard every deployment after them has to meet. Coder is self-deployed into customer environments. Global 2000 enterprises run it on their own infrastructure, not ours. That means every implementation carries real production weight from day one. Forward Deployed Engineering exists to prove Coder works at that weight, in the account, then turn what worked into something the rest of the company can reuse.

The mission is pattern-first, not project-first. A deployment isn't done when it's live. It's done when it's been codified into a reusable asset, including a code kit, a playbook, and known failure modes, that makes the next deployment faster, cheaper, and more predictable. The first deployment might take 90 days. The fifth should take 30. That compression is the job.

Forward Deployed Engineering starts in post-sales and works back into pre-sales. Your engagements take place at production-grade scale, where customers are building AI-native development workflows on Coder's infrastructure. What you build there becomes the proof that pre-sales references are more than theories. CSMs inherit a pattern instead of a bespoke one-off.

Success will be measured by pattern reuse rate across accounts, revenue influenced per FDE headcount, and FDE-to-field handoff rate. We are not looking for an everything-is-custom orientation. If your instinct on a hard problem is always to build a bespoke solution rather than ask whether this maps to, or should become, a reusable pattern, this isn't the right seat. We're hiring a pattern builder, not a services engineer.

• The pattern system. Four engagement types:
  Win, Onboard, Health/Get-Well, and Long-Term Partnership. One governing principle across all four: investment equals TAM. High-TAM accounts get deep, human-led FDE engagement. Lower-TAM accounts get served through the pattern and intelligence layer instead.

• The build. Discovery, technical scoping, solution design, hands-on implementation, and early production rollout on lighthouse accounts. You write the workflows, integrations, and glue code yourself when that's what removes the blocker.

• The exit. Every engagement is time-boxed with defined exit criteria from day one. You decide the handoff path before the build starts, not after the pilot ends. This is not a permanent delivery function.

• The IC search. You are the founding hire for this function. You shape who comes in behind you, set the architectural standards, and own the pattern system going forward. Without this seat filled, FDE drifts back into services. That's the risk this role exists to prevent.

• The judgment calls. Deciding when a use case is genuinely ready for production versus when the economics, data readiness, or sponsorship don't support continued investment. Saying no to the wrong engagement is as much the job as saying yes to the right one.

• Three non-negotiables:

  • Cloud implementation depth. Real production infrastructure work, not adjacent exposure to it.

  • Application development expertise. You've built and shipped, not advised on someone else's build.

  • An AI-first mindset with production agentic systems shipped. Not a demo. Not a POC. Something running in production, with the failure modes to show for it.

• You've led or helped build technical customer-facing teams such as professional services, forward deployed engineering, solution architecture, or implementation.

• You like operating as both a builder and a leader.

• You can work directly with customers while also designing the systems, patterns, and operating model behind the work.

• You're comfortable with ambiguity and energized by defining a new category of work rather than inheriting a finished playbook.

• You care about customer outcomes, product feedback loops, and practical organizational change.

• You have enough technical depth to engage credibly with cloud-native platforms, developer workflows, and AI-enabled development practices.

• Terraform, platform engineering, developer infrastructure, or cloud…