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ID.meSan Francisco Bay Area

Forward Deployed Engineering Manager

On-siteFull Time$188k - $275k per yearPosted 8 days ago

About the role

Who you are

  • You'll be equally comfortable in a customer war room and in a backlog-grooming session — someone who can build trust with a customer's technical stakeholders one hour and prioritize your team's next two sprints the next
  • 5+ years in a customer-facing engineering role (forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, sales engineering, or implementation engineering), with 2+ years managing engineers
  • Track record of translating messy, real-world customer problems into clear technical specs that engineering and data/ontology teams can execute against
  • Experience building and prioritizing a backlog for a small team under competing customer deadlines
  • Strong technical fluency — comfortable reading API docs, discussing data models, and troubleshooting integrations alongside engineers, without needing to write production code day-to-day
  • Excellent relationship-building skills with both technical and non-technical customer stakeholders, including at the executive level
  • Clear, structured written and verbal communication; comfortable being the bridge in a room full of people who don't naturally speak the same language
  • Background in identity proofing, fraud, or data/knowledge graph and ontology systems
  • Prior experience at a high-growth B2B SaaS or platform company What the job involves
  • ID.Me is looking for a Manager of Forward Deployed Engineering to sit within Product Operations and act as the connective tissue between our customers, our product team, and engineering
  • This role owns a small team of forward-deployed engineers who embed directly with customers, diagnose real-world integration challenges, and translate what they learn into clear, structured input the product ontology and engineering teams can act on
  • Serve as the primary translator between customers and ID.me's product ontology and engineering teams — turning ambiguous, in-the-field customer problems into precise technical requirements, data model implications, and well-scoped engineering asks
  • Document and route customer-reported issues, edge cases, and feature gaps so product ontology and engineering have the context they need without having to talk to the customer directly
  • Build repeatable processes (templates, intake forms, escalation paths) that keep customer problems from getting lost or garbled between teams
  • Manage and grow a team of forward deployed engineers, setting clear goals and providing technical and career mentorship
  • Build, maintain, and prioritize the team's backlog of customer-driven work, balancing urgent customer needs against long-term platform and ontology investments
  • Partner with Product Operations and Engineering leadership to align FDE work with broader roadmap and capacity planning
  • Establish metrics to track team throughput, customer impact, and time-to-resolution, and use them to continuously improve how the team operates
  • Build durable, trusted relationships with customer technical and business stakeholders, acting as a face of ID.me during implementation, expansion, and escalation moments
  • Travel on-site or join deep working sessions with customers as needed to understand their environment firsthand
  • Represent the voice of the customer internally, and represent ID.me's technical roadmap and constraints externally, in a way that keeps both sides aligned Benefits
  • Company-Sponsored Medical, Dental, and Vision Plans for You and Your Family
  • Paid Parental Leave
  • Generous Paid Time Off
  • 401K With Employer Matching
  • Company-Sponsored Life Insurance
  • Employee Equity Incentive Plan
  • Remote Opportunities
  • Multiple Lounge Areas and Game Room
  • Numerous Mental Health Resources
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