Forward Deployed Engineering Lead

Gradial helps marketers and creatives move from idea to execution faster. Our platform turns intent into action, automating website updates, design system migrations, and ongoing content optimization while preserving brand integrity across every touchpoint. Backed by leading investors, we’re building software that adapts to the user, not the other way around. We move with urgency, operate with ownership, and solve hard problems from first principles. If you want to do ambitious work, take real responsibility, and help define the future of AI-native content operations, you’ll do your best work here. The Role As Forward Deployed Engineering Lead at Gradial, you will lead a team deploying our platform in complex enterprise environments. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who can manage engineers, drive delivery, and go deep technically when needed. You will sit at the intersection of customer complexity, product insight, and execution quality, helping the team deliver exceptional outcomes while shaping how Gradial scales in the field. You’ll own strategic deployments across Gradial’s platform, lead custom projects for key enterprise customers, and support rollout of new capabilities in real-world environments. You’ll partner closely with Engineering, Forward Deployed Product Managers, and GTM to solve hard problems quickly, turn field learnings into product leverage, and ensure our most important customer work is executed with speed, rigor, and sound judgment. This role is for a leader who has strong technical instincts, knows how to push hard for customers without creating internal chaos, and can raise the bar for a team working at the edge of product and deployment. What You’ll Own Lead and develop a team of Forward Deployed Engineers, setting a high bar for execution, judgment, and ownership Own delivery across strategic enterprise deployments, custom implementations, and new feature rollouts Stay hands-on in solution design, scoping, architecture, debugging, and implementation when needed Partner with Engineering and Forward Deployed Product Managers to turn customer complexity into scalable systems, product improvements, and repeatable delivery patterns Work directly with enterprise stakeholders to clarify requirements, navigate ambiguity, unblock decisions, and drive outcomes Improve team operations across planning, prioritization, communication, and delivery quality without slowing pace Collaborate with GTM on strategic accounts to shape solutions that are technically credible and commercially effective Identify patterns across customer work and turn them into playbooks, reusable components, and stronger execution models Help the team balance speed and quality in high-stakes environments with evolving requirements Act as a force multiplier across customers, product, and engineering by bringing clarity to messy problems and momentum to critical work   What We Need 5+ years of experience in software engineering, technical delivery, solutions engineering, forward deployed work, or similar customer-facing technical roles Experience directly managing technical teams in fast-moving, high-accountability environments Strong technical fluency and the ability to stay hands-on with implementation and problem-solving Proven suc