Forward Deployed Engineering Manager

Cresta is revolutionizing customer conversations by combining AI and human intelligence to help contact centers discover insights, automate processes, and empower teams. The company is led by industry experts from Stanford AI lab, Google, OpenAI, and more.

Location: Remote (US)

Salary: $205,000–$280,000 + Annual Bonus & Offers Equity

Responsibilities

• Build and scale the Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) team by recruiting, mentoring, and defining career paths.
• Refine processes and drive operational excellence across customer engagement, deployment, and support.
• Drive product improvements by synthesizing customer feedback and collaborating with product and engineering teams.
• Lead cross-functional collaboration with Product, Engineering, Sales, Solutions Engineering, and Customer Success teams.
• Stay hands-on when needed by supporting deployments, troubleshooting, and contributing technically.

Requirements

• At least 2 years of engineering management experience, including mentoring and growing teams.
• Customer-facing engineering background as an FDE, Solutions Engineer, or similar role.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals (coding, system design, APIs, databases).
• Hands-on experience with AI agents, LLMs, prompt engineering, or ML deployments in production.
• Proven track record in recruiting, onboarding, and developing high-performing engineers.
• Ability to influence and collaborate across multiple teams including Product, Engineering, Sales, and Customer Success.
• Bias toward action with fast shipping, iteration, and customer impact.
• Deep customer empathy and ability to translate technical concepts into business value.
• Experience in startup or scale-up environments with high growth.
• Enterprise B2B experience with complex deployments and long sales cycles.
• Product mindset with understanding of market needs, prioritization, and trade-offs.
• Experience in process design and iteration.
• Entrepreneurial or founder experience with ownership and building from zero.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• Flexible PTO and paid parental leave.
• Retirement savings plan.
• Remote work setup budget.
• Monthly wellness and communication stipend.
• In-office meal program and commuter benefits for onsite employees.

Additional Information

• Cresta offers competitive, location-based pay with a range of $205,000–$280,000 plus bonus and equity.
• Final offers depend on experience, skills, education, and location.
• All official communications will come from the @cresta.ai domain.