Head of Forward Deployment Engineering - Tavily
Core
Leading the Forward Deployed Engineering organization to execute technical strategy for Tavily's most strategic enterprise AI agent customers, bridging the gap between LLMs and real-world applications.
Role type
Senior IC / Team Lead, Forward Deployed Engineering (AI Agents & Search)
Builds
Production integrations, retrieval pipelines, agentic systems, and reference architectures for enterprise clients using the Tavily API.
Domain
AI Infrastructure, Large Language Models (LLMs), Agentic Workflows, Search & Retrieval
Deliverable
production ML models | product features | client delivery
Required skills
Python, distributed systems, modern software architecture, LLM application design, agentic workflows, retrieval architectures, enterprise account management, team leadership, technical strategy, stakeholder management
Preferred skills
Leading Forward Deployed/Solutions Engineering orgs, scaling customer-facing functions, open-source AI contributions, conference speaking, domain expertise in financial/legal/enterprise SaaS
Technologies
Tavily API, LLM frameworks, agent orchestration tools, retrieval infrastructure
Responsibilities
Define and evolve the FDE organization's vision, operating model, and execution playbooks; Lead, mentor, and scale an existing team of Forward Deployed Engineers; Own technical strategy for strategic enterprise accounts from discovery to production rollout; Partner with Sales and Customer Success to accelerate enterprise adoption; Serve as senior technical voice with executive stakeholders; Stay hands-on leading strategic customer engagements and building reference implementations; Build scalable internal assets like playbooks, demo environments, and reference architectures; Synthesize customer feedback into product roadmap recommendations; Represent Tavily externally in executive conversations and developer communities.
Seniority
Director/VP level, hands-on IC with team leadership
