Head of Forward Deployed Engineering

Head of Forward Deployed Engineering – Serval

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Who We Are

At Serval, we’re building the AI platform for IT teams. Our goal is to take on legacy players like ServiceNow, a $230+ bn company, by deploying AI agents to resolve IT issues instead of humans.

Serval “automates the automation,” using a natural language-to-code workflow builder and AI agents that discover and deliver automations for tedious IT workflows.

Our mission is to free IT departments from the #helpdesk channel by creating the simplest way to automate employee onboarding / offboarding, software access management, and the long tail of employee requests. Long term, our vision extends to developing a universal workflow automation and enterprise service management platform for all business functions.

Serval was founded by product and engineering leaders from Verkada and is backed by industry-leading investors like First Round, General Catalyst, Alt Capital, and Box Group.

Role Overview

As Head of Forward Deployed Engineering, you’ll build and lead the team that sits closest to Serval’s customers — where product meets reality. You’ll own how we deploy Serval’s AI platform into complex IT environments, ensuring customers realize immediate value while feeding critical insights back into product and engineering.

You’ll start as a hands‑on technical leader — writing code, leading high‑stakes pilots, and designing scalable onboarding processes — then grow a team of forward deployed engineers who blend software engineering, customer empathy, and systems thinking.

This role is ideal for someone who’s operated at the intersection of engineering and customer success, thrives in ambiguity, and loves building zero‑to‑one technical teams in high‑growth, AI‑native startups.

What You’ll Do

Build and lead the Forward Deployed Engineering function, defining its charter, processes, and hiring plan.

Own customer implementations and pilots, ensuring rapid, reliable value delivery for strategic accounts.

Write production-quality code to extend Serval’s platform, integrate APIs, and solve unique customer challenges.

Develop reusable onboarding frameworks, turning bespoke deployments into repeatable, scalable patterns.

Partner with Product & Engineering to translate field learnings into roadmap priorities and platform improvements.

Act as a trusted advisor to customers’ IT and Security leaders, guiding them through automation design and rollout.

Drive technical strategy for migrations, integrations, and long-term account success.

Recruit, mentor, and develop a world‑class team of forward deployed engineers who embody Serval’s pace and precision.

Establish metrics and systems to track deployment velocity, adoption, and satisfaction across accounts.

What You’ll Need

7–10+ years of software engineering experience, with 3+ years leading technical or customer-facing teams.

Proven track record of building and scaling Forward Deployed / Software Engineering teams in a fast-paced SaaS or AI environment.

Strong technical foundation — capable of reading and writing production code, building APIs, and debugging distributed systems.

Experience working directly with enterprise customers on deployments, integrations, and architecture design.

Excellent communication skills — able to translate between technical and executive audiences.

Builder’s mindset : thrives in ambiguity, moves fast, and creates process where none exists.

Deep customer empathy and the ability to balance short-term needs with long-term platform evolution.

Based in or willing to work from our SF HQ, 5 days / week, with occasional travel to customers.

Bonus Points

Prior startup experience as an early technical or engineering leader.

Knowledge of IT, Security, or workflow automation domains.

Comfort working with LLM-based or AI agent systems in production.

Strong opinions on how “agentic” deployment teams should operate and measure success.

What We Offer

Impact : Shape the customer experience for our AI-driven platform, directly influencing Serval’s product and trajectory.

Growth : Be a founding member of Serval’s forward deployed team. Accelerate your career as Serval scales rapidly.

Culture : Join a fast‑paced team that values velocity, high performance, and fun.

Compensation : The expected base salary range for this role is $160,000 – $240,000 USD annually. Actual compensation will depend on experience and skills. In addition to salary, we offer meaningful early‑stage equity and a range of benefits to support your well‑being and growth — including comprehensive health coverage, flexible PTO, daily lunches and snacks, onsite gym access, and regular team events and offsites.

Seniority level : Director

Employment type : Full‑time

Job Function : Engineering and Information Technology

Industries : Software Development

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