Director of Forward Deployed Engineering, NORAM

Location: New York Office Workplace: Hybrid Taktile is building the infrastructure that enables financial institutions to become truly AI-native. As our customer base grows, we're looking for a Director of Forward Deployed Engineering to lead our NORAM FDE organization and scale how we deliver complex AI and decisioning solutions into production. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who has led teams of Forward Deployed, Implementation, or Delivery Engineers through complex enterprise deployments. You’ll lead a team of 15-20 FDEs while also acting as a senior technical leader on our most challenging customer engagements. You’ll help define the operating model, tooling, and standards that allow an FDE-led delivery organization to move quickly while consistently delivering production-grade solutions and measurable customer value. What You'll Do as Director, Forward Deployed Engineering - As a coach: - Lead a team of 15-20 FDEs in our NORAM region to ensure signed contracts are delivered in production with solid, measurable business value. - Own the Quarterly Go-live ARR metric for NORAM region. - Own team operations e.g. monitor signed contracts backlog, manage implementation pipeline, assign project staffing, monitor team capacity, review project milestones, evaluate and sign off project outcomes, etc. - Scale our FDE-led delivery motion by working closely with Engineering and Product teams to build and maintain the FDE tooling library and ensure flexibility, reusability, and maintainability in the FDE operating system layer. - Advocate for your team's priorities with Product and Engineering leaders, securing the resources to unblock and accelerate key implementations. - Hire and develop FDEs to keep pace with the business. - As a player: - Act as principal FDE and solution architect on our most complex deployments, owning enterprise, production-grade design. - Bring technical expertise and authority to lead problem solving sessions with customers' technical teams and Taktile internal engineering teams. - Provide sharp signal on product-market fit, product gaps, and enhancements back to Product and Engineering - Remain genuinely hands-on - platform configuration, AI-agent training and evals- and step into delivery work when a project needs it. About You - You, first and foremost, truly believe in the FDE-led AI delivery motion. You want to be part of building and running an industry-best FDE team that implement enterprise production-grade AI solutions highly efficiently and at-scale. - You have 10+ years of experience as an Implementation Engineer, Forward Deployed Engineer, Solution Engineer or an equivalent position within a B2B SaaS company. - You've led large, multi-quarter enterprise implementations- seven-figure ARR, staffed by cross-functional teams. - You have strong technical background, preferred in fields such as Computer Science, Mathematics, Software Engineering, Physics, and Data Science. - You've managed a team (5+ reports) and can grow one. - You're still sharp in production Python and SQL, and fluent with REST APIs, batch data pipelines, and data-warehouse integrations. - You're bilingual in tech and business: you go deep with engineers and talk value and trade-offs with executives. - You're collaborative, curious, and low-ego- you work well across product, engineering, and GTM teams, and you bring a genuine desire to advocate for customers' successes while maintaining Taktile solution and system principles. - You can work from our NYC office at least three days per week. Ideal Qualifications (but not required) - You have experience in building AI applications within financial services - You have experience in applying and optimizing statistical and machine learning models to solve business problems. - You have first hand experience in at least one of our core use cases: business onboarding, business loan underwriting, insurance claim processing, and financial crime / fraud / AML investigation. - You have experience with at least one of the major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP). What We Offer - Work with colleagues that lift you up, challenge you, celebrate you and help you grow. We come from many different backgrounds, but what we have in common is the desire to operate at the very top of our fields. If you are similarly capable, caring, and driven, you'll find yourself at home here. - Make an impact and meaningfully shape an early-stage company. - Experience a truly flat hierarchy and communicate directly with founding team members. Having an opinion and voicing your ideas is not only welcome but encouraged, especially when they challenge the status quo. - Learn from experienced mentors and achieve tremendous personal and professional growth. Get to know and leverage our network of leading tech investors and advisors around the globe. - Receive a top-of-market equity and cash compensation package. - Get access to a self-development budget you can use to e.g. attend conferences, buy books or take classes. - Use the equipment of your choice including meaningful home office set-up. Our Stance - We're eager to meet talented and driven candidates regardless of whether they tick all the boxes. We're looking for someone who will add to our culture, not just fit within it. We strongly encourage individuals from groups traditionally underestimated and underrepresented in tech to apply. - We seek to actively recognize and combat racism, sexism, ableism and ageism. We embrace and support all gender identities and expressions, and celebrate love in its many forms. We won't inquire about how you identify or if you've experienced discrimination, but if you want to tell your story, we are all ears. About Us Taktile enables financial institutions to transform into AI-native organizations that are increasingly powered by autonomous agents. With our modular Agentic Decision Platform, customers combine AI agents, rules, relevant context, and human oversight to safely automate and optimize their decisions—approving more customers, reimbursing claims instantly, stopping fraud before it spreads, and financing every business worth funding. Founded in 2020, Taktile powers millions of decisions daily for institutions including Mercury, Monzo, Faire, and Pleo. With offices in New York, Berlin, London, São Paulo, and Iași, the company has raised $184M from Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Index Ventures, Tiger Global, Balderton Capital, and Y Combinator. Learn more at taktile.com http://taktile.com. About Your Employment. Taktile operates through regional entities worldwide. Depending on the location of this role, your employment or engagement will be with Taktile LLC (US), Taktile GmbH (Germany), Taktile Ltd (UK), or Taktile SRL (Romania). The applicable entity will be confirmed during the offer process. Your Privacy. Taktile ("we" or "us") is the controller of the personal data you provide during this application process. We collect and process your name, contact details, resume/CV, work history, education, and any other information you submit or that we obtain from publicly available sources or references. How we use your data: We process your personal data to evaluate your candidacy, communicate with you about the recruitment process, comply with legal obligations (such as right-to-work verification), and, with your consent, to consider you for future opportunities. Legal basis (EU/UK applicants): We rely on (i) pre-contractual steps at your request (GDPR/UK GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)), (ii) legal obligations (Art. 6(1)(c)), and (iii) our legitimate interest in evaluating candidates (Art. 6(1)(f)). Retention: If your application is unsuccessful, we retain your data for 12 months after the recruitment process concludes, unless you consent to longer retention. Successful candidates' data becomes part of their employment records. Your rights: Depending on your location, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or restrict the processing of your personal data, to data portability, and to withdraw consent. California residents have additional rights under the CCPA, including the right to know, delete, and correct personal information. Automated decision-making: We use automated tools to assist in screening applications. No hiring decision is made solely by automated means without human review. International transfers: Your data may be transferred to and processed in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, or Romania. Where required, transfers are protected by Standard Contractual Clauses or other approved mechanisms. By submitting your application, you acknowledge that you have read and understood Taktile's Applicant Privacy Policy https://taktile.com/legal/applicant-privacy-policy. To exercise your rights or ask questions, contact privacy@taktile.com.