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Forward Deployed Engineering Leader

Cohesity · Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Area · Today
Engineering$230k–$287k/yrFull-time

About the role

Cohesity is hiring a Director to lead our Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) organization. This team owns the last mile of technical delivery for our most complex and highest-value customers, ensuring Cohesity's platform capabilities translate into production outcomes and measurable business value.

Responsibilities

  • Team Leadership & Scale: Lead, develop, and grow a team of Forward Deployed Engineers at the Individual Contributor level (IC5) across Tier 1 and Tier 2 account coverage.

  • Establish team operating rhythm, performance standards, and career development frameworks.

  • Evolve FDE operating models, engagement playbooks, tooling, and documentation to support scale.

  • Manage a globally distributed team (70% India / 30% US) with consistent standards and an inclusive culture.

  • Customer Outcomes & Account Ownership: Own post-sale technical delivery for Cohesity's Top 300 accounts — from complex deployments and Proof of Concept (POC)-to-production conversions to ongoing optimization.

  • Act as the senior technical escalation point for Tier 1 engagements; partner with Customer Success Managers (CSMs), Sales Engineers (SEs), and Strategic Technical Assistance Team (STAT).

  • Drive time-to-production, deployment success rates, and POC conversion outcomes.

  • Ensure FDE engagement translates into measurable adoption, utilization, and renewal signals — grounded in customer outcomes, not activity metrics.

  • Represent the customer perspective internally by translating deployment friction and adoption blockers into actionable product feedback.

  • Technical Execution & Problem Solving: Lead structured root cause analysis on deployment failures, misconfigurations, and adoption stalls; convert findings into reusable playbooks.

  • Assess customer infrastructure environments and prescribe Cohesity deployment patterns optimized for performance, resilience, and long-term manageability.

  • Identify and address both technical and organizational blockers impacting customer outcomes.

  • Drive accountability for reducing time-to-unblock across critical Tier 1 engagements.

  • Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) & Revenue Impact: Influence Gross Revenue Retention by removing technical barriers that lead to churn in strategic accounts.

  • Partner with Customer Success (CS) and Finance to track FDE-driven retention and expansion impact.

  • Equip CSMs and renewal teams with proof-of-value artifacts, usage insights, and technical Return on Investment (ROI) narratives.

  • Cross-Functional Alignment: Own and enforce high-quality technical handoffs from pre-sale Sales Engineer (SE) to FDE, including clear account context, risk assessment, and early success plans.

  • Align cross-functional teams around shared customer outcomes.

  • Maintain a structured view of product gaps and deployment friction; regularly present prioritized recommendations to Product and leadership.

  • Partner with Sales Engineering leadership to strengthen pre-to-post-sale continuity for complex accounts.

  • Act as a strategic partner to the Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) and Customer Success (CS) leadership on account prioritization, risk identification, and escalation strategy.

Qualifications

  • 10+ years in customer-facing technical roles (solutions engineering, FDE, professional services, or technical account management).

  • 5+ years leading teams of senior engineers or technical specialists.

  • Proven ownership of complex, enterprise-scale deployments in production environments.

  • Deep familiarity with data protection, storage, cloud, or security platforms (e.g., Cohesity, Commvault, Rubrik, Veeam, NetApp).

  • Demonstrated ability to influence GRR through technical delivery, with measurable impact.

  • Strong track record diagnosing and resolving complex, multi-system failures in production environments.

  • Experience acting as a trusted advisor to enterprise IT and security leaders (CISOs, VPs, Directors).

  • Familiarity with modern cloud and AI infrastructure (Kubernetes, hybrid cloud, object storage, unstructured data systems).

  • Ability to translate technical deployment status into business risk for executive stakeholders.

  • Customer-first mindset — defines success by customer outcomes and business impact.

  • Structured problem solver — applies repeatable approaches to complex failures.

  • Builder with scale mindset — able to create clarity, structure, and consistency in evolving environments.

  • Outcome-oriented — focuses on production impact vs. activity.

  • Strong executive presence — comfortable engaging C-level leaders internally and externally.

  • Deep field empathy — understands enterprise sales cycles and customer realities.

  • Highly effective at driving alignment without direct authority.

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