Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering

Details

Anthropic is building its Applied AI team to help ambitious organizations adopt Claude through transformative, safe, and lasting AI deployments. The Forward Deployed Engineering Manager will be the founding leader responsible for building and scaling the Forward Deployed Engineering practice, leading customer-facing technical engagements, and establishing repeatable delivery standards.

This is a player-coach leadership role. The manager will remain involved in architecture reviews, production debugging, technical discovery, and solution prototyping while focusing primarily on hiring, team development, operational standards, and organizational culture. The role partners closely with Engagement Managers, Sales, Product, and Engineering, and requires working effectively in ambiguous, zero-to-one environments.

Responsibilities

• Hire, develop, and retain a world-class team of Forward Deployed Engineers.
• Set a high bar for technical talent, customer judgment, and quality of delivery.
• Conduct regular 1:1s, provide technical mentorship, and support team members’ career growth.
• Staff and oversee customer engagements, balancing customer needs, team development, and business priorities.
• Collaborate with account teams and Engagement Managers during pre-sales to qualify engagements, scope work, and inform statements of work.
• Review technical architectures and code to ensure production-ready solutions.
• Lead technical discovery sessions, prototype solutions, and debug complex issues when needed.
• Build repeatable playbooks, starter repositories, integration templates, and an internal knowledge base.
• Define team OKRs connected to customer success and product adoption goals.
• Establish operational cadences, including standups, retrospectives, and engagement reviews.
• Partner with Product and Engineering to turn field insights into product improvements.
• Represent the customer perspective in internal planning.
• Travel to customer sites as needed, approximately 25–50%, particularly for engagement kickoffs and priority accounts.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, solutions architecture, forward deployed engineering, consulting, or another technical customer-facing role.
• 2+ years of people management experience within a services, post-sales, or forward deployed engineering organization.
• Track record of hiring, developing, and retaining strong engineers.
• Experience building organizations from zero to one rather than inheriting an existing organization.
• Experience working directly with enterprise customers on technical implementations.
• Ability to navigate complex organizational dynamics and communicate with senior stakeholders.
• Executive presence combined with the ability to participate in hands-on debugging sessions with engineers.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate technical complexity into clear narratives.
• Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and experience.
• Relevant field of study demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience.

Benefits

Anthropic offers competitive compensation and benefits, optional equity donation matching, generous vacation and parental leave, flexible working hours, and office collaboration spaces. Anthropic sponsors visas, although sponsorship availability may vary by role and candidate, and provides access to an immigration lawyer.

The role follows a location-based hybrid policy, with staff expected to work from an Anthropic office at least 25% of the time.