Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering

Details

Anthropic is building its Applied AI team to help organizations adopt Claude through transformative, safe, and lasting enterprise deployments. Forward Deployed Engineers work directly with strategic customers to ship production AI applications that solve real business problems. As the first FDE Manager in Southern Europe, you will build and scale the Forward Deployed Engineering team and establish the technical and operational standards for customer engagements.

This is a player-coach leadership role. You will remain involved in technical architecture reviews, production debugging, technical discovery, and solution prototyping, while primarily focusing on hiring, developing, and retaining engineers; setting standards; and creating team culture. You will collaborate with Sales, Product, Engineering, account teams, and Engagement Managers to support strategic customers and translate field insights into product improvements.

Responsibilities

• Hire, develop, and retain a world-class team of Forward Deployed Engineers.
• Set a high standard for technical talent, customer instincts, code quality, and production-ready solutions.
• Conduct regular 1:1s, provide technical mentorship, and support 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 produced by the team.
• 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.
• Establish operational cadences including standups, retrospectives, and engagement reviews.
• Partner with Product and Engineering to translate field insights into product improvements.
• Travel to customer sites as needed, approximately 25–50% of the time.

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 FDE organization.
• A track record of hiring, developing, and retaining strong engineers.
• Experience building organizations from 0 to 1.
• Experience working directly with enterprise customers on technical implementations.
• Ability to navigate complex organizational dynamics and communicate with senior stakeholders.
• Executive presence and the ability to move between strategic discussions and hands-on debugging.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical complexity to diverse audiences.
• Enthusiasm for building new teams and defining operational and technical excellence.
• A bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education, training, and experience.

Benefits

Anthropic offers competitive compensation and benefits, optional equity donation matching, generous vacation and parental leave, flexible working hours, and an office environment for collaboration.