Director, Forward Deployed Engineering & Technical Support

Stack

Responsibilities

• ▹Lead and scale both the FDE and Technical Support teams, defining engagement models, operating standards, and headcount plans
• ▹Own the FDE engagement lifecycle: technical discovery, environment assessment, solution architecture, PoC validation, and deployment guidance
• ▹Engage Sales at the right moments and ensure FDE coverage goes to the customers where it drives the most value
• ▹Set the standard for how FDEs operate as trusted advisors, hands-on where the situation calls for it
• ▹Synthesize patterns from FDE engagements and support escalations into clear, prioritized product input
• ▹Run Technical Support across all tiers (Tier 1-3) with defined SLA/SLO frameworks, CSAT and TTR targets
• ▹Drive operational discipline across the stack: Zendesk, HubSpot, Linear, and Notion
• ▹Partner with Sales, Account Management, Product, and Engineering on pre-sales strategy, QBRs, and escalations

Requirements

• ▹10+ years in technical customer-facing roles (solutions engineering, field engineering, or a hybrid FDE function), with at least 4 years leading a team in a high-growth cloud infrastructure, SaaS, or AI/ML company
• ▹Deep technical fluency in GPU compute and AI/ML infrastructure; hands-on coding ability (Python, Docker/Kubernetes)
• ▹Demonstrated experience building or leading a technical engagement function spanning pre- and post-sales
• ▹Proven ability to build and run tiered support organizations: SLA/SLO frameworks, on-call structures, escalation paths
• ▹Strong systems-builder instinct: playbooks, triage frameworks, onboarding programs
• ▹Proficiency with Zendesk, HubSpot, Linear, and Notion; comfort using AI tools (Claude, Gemini, GPT) to accelerate documentation and triage
• ▹Exceptional communicator across audiences, from a customer's ML team to Engineering leadership
• ▹Successful completion of a background check

Soft skills

What we offer

• ▹Competitive base pay of $200,000–$300,000
• ▹Meaningful equity in a fast-growing company
• ▹Generous medical, dental & vision plans — 100% covered for employees, partial for dependents
• ▹Flexible PTO
• ▹$1,200 home office & equipment stipend
• ▹Remote-first, Slack-driven collaborative culture

About the company

Runpod is the AI Developer Cloud, used by more than one million developers to experiment, train, and scale AI, with over 20 billion inference requests processed. The company closed a $100M Series A in June 2026.