Head of Forward Deployment Engineering - Tavily

Details

Nebius is building a full-stack AI cloud platform for the global AI economy, supporting developers and enterprises from data and model training through production deployment. Tavily is building a search engine for AI agents, with an API designed to power retrieval-augmented generation and real-time reasoning in AI systems.

As Head of Forward Deployed Engineering, you will lead a growing team of Forward Deployed Engineers and build the operating model for the next stage of scale. You will establish how the organization hires, executes, prioritizes, and measures success while remaining hands-on with strategic customer engagements. You will partner with the executive team on enterprise strategy, product direction, and high-impact technical initiatives.

Forward Deployed Engineering leads the technical execution of Tavily's most strategic customer initiatives, from discovery and proofs of concept through production rollout and expansion. The function operates at the intersection of enterprise customers, Product, Engineering, Sales, Customer Success, and strategic business initiatives.

The role can be performed remotely from within the United States, with regular presence in New York City as needed.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the Forward Deployed Engineering organization's vision, operating model, execution playbooks, resourcing strategy, and quarterly priorities.
• Lead, mentor, and scale an existing team of Forward Deployed Engineers, raising standards for hiring, technical excellence, execution, and customer impact.
• Own the technical strategy for strategic enterprise accounts from discovery and solution design through proofs of concept, production rollout, and expansion.
• Partner with Sales and Customer Success to shape technical strategy for strategic accounts, accelerate enterprise adoption, and drive expansion opportunities.
• Serve as the senior technical voice with executive stakeholders, including CTOs, VPs of Engineering, founders, and technical decision-makers.
• Lead strategic customer engagements and build reference implementations, retrieval pipelines, agentic systems, production integrations, and technical prototypes using the Tavily API.
• Support high-impact technical initiatives requiring senior field expertise, including strategic customer, product, or partner-facing work.
• Build scalable internal assets such as playbooks, demo environments, documentation, reference architectures, tooling, and reusable templates.
• Synthesize customer patterns and technical feedback into product and engineering roadmap recommendations.
• Represent Tavily in executive customer conversations, strategic engagements, developer communities, conferences, and technical content.

Requirements

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including significant experience in customer-facing technical roles such as Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Architect, Solutions Engineer, or Sales Engineer.
• 4+ years of experience building or leading customer-facing engineering teams, including hiring, coaching, performance management, and organizational scaling.
• Strong hands-on engineering ability in Python, APIs, distributed systems, and modern software architecture.
• Deep experience designing and building production AI systems, including LLM applications, agentic workflows, retrieval architectures, evaluation systems, and infrastructure for reliable operation at scale.
• Strong familiarity with the modern AI application stack, including agent orchestration frameworks, retrieval infrastructure, evaluation tooling, and production deployment patterns.
• Proven ability to lead the technical side of enterprise engagements from initial architecture discussions through successful production deployment and expansion.
• Strong business and commercial judgment, balancing customer outcomes, engineering investment, and company priorities.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills across executive, technical, and developer audiences.
• A builder's mindset and the ability to create structure, operating rhythms, and scalable playbooks in fast-moving, ambiguous environments.
• Based in New York City, willing to relocate, or able to maintain a strong presence with the team and customers.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading a Forward Deployed Engineering, Solutions Architecture, Solutions Engineering, or Professional Services organization.
• Experience scaling a customer-facing engineering function through rapid company growth.
• Open-source contributions to AI infrastructure, agent frameworks, retrieval systems, or evaluation tooling.
• Experience speaking at developer conferences or publishing technical content on AI systems, agents, or LLM applications.
• Domain expertise in financial services, legal, enterprise SaaS, consulting, or AI infrastructure.
• Experience collaborating with model providers, AI platforms, or strategic technology partners.

Benefits

• 100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and families.
• 401(k) plan with up to a 4% company match and immediate vesting.
• 20 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers and 12 weeks for secondary caregivers.
• Remote work reimbursement of up to $85 per month for mobile and internet.
• Company-paid short-term, long-term, and life insurance coverage.
• Career growth and learning opportunities.
• Flexibility and ownership.
• Collaborative and innovative culture.
• Opportunity to work on impactful AI projects.
• International environment and talented teams.

Applicants must be authorized to work in the country in which they apply and must provide proof of employment eligibility as a condition of hire. Nebius is an equal opportunity employer.