Head of Forward Deployed Engineering

Department: Engineering

Location: San Francisco

Compensation: $250K – $400K • Offers Equity

Employment Type: FullTime

Who We Are

Serval is an AI-native automation platform transforming how enterprises operate. We build intelligent agents that understand real-world workflows and execute them end-to-end — replacing manual processes and rigid legacy systems with adaptive, learning software. Founded in early 2024, Serval is already trusted by companies like General Motors, Notion, Perplexity, Vercel, Mercor, LangChain, and Verkada to automate high-volume, high-friction operational work across their organizations.

At the core of Serval is an agentic AI platform that turns natural language into production-grade workflows. Our agents don’t just respond to requests — they reason, take action across systems, and continuously improve with usage. What began with operational use cases has quickly evolved into a horizontal AI automation layer used across IT, HR, Finance, Security, Legal, and Engineering.

Our mission is to eliminate repetitive, manual work across the enterprise and give teams leverage through intelligent automation. Long term, we’re building the universal AI operations layer — a system of agents that sits across business functions and runs the workflows that keep modern companies moving.

We’re backed by leading investors including Sequoia Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Meritech, First Round, General Catalyst, Elad Gil, and others, and founded by product and engineering leaders from Verkada.

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.

Nice to Have

• 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: Be a key player in shaping the success of our product and company.

• Growth: Build a fundamentally new AI product offering with the support of our experienced team and investors. Grow rapidly with the company.

• Culture: Join a culture that values innovation, ownership, accountability, and fun.