Forward Deployed Engineering · London or the Gulf - Travel to customer sites · Full-time

Head of Forward Deployed Engineering

About 1001

1001 builds AI-powered operational intelligence for the world's most complex, data-heavy environments. We turn fragmented data into a live, unified model of operations and use it to drive better decisions and solve high-stakes problems. Our work sits inside government and large enterprises, in environments defined by critical operations and messy, real-world data.

Our engagements start with forward-deployed teams embedded in the customer environment. They work on real data, build quickly, and iterate until the system proves itself, then scale it across the organization.

The company is backed by Lux Capital, General Catalyst, civ, Hanabi, Sanabil, and 9Yards, with angels including Chris Re, Amjad Masad, Karim Atiyeh, Kareem Amin, and Russell Kaplan.

Working at 1001

We take on high-stakes problems in environments where mistakes carry real consequences. That demands an uncompromising bar, real speed, and systems that hold up under live operations. The people who thrive set that bar for themselves and keep raising it. They own outcomes end to end, bring rigor to everything, and lift everyone around them.

About the role

Forward deployed work is how 1001 turns a customer's hardest operational problem into software that holds up in the field. This role owns that work end-to-end, from the first discovery conversation through go-live, and sets the bar for how every forward deployed engineer here operates.

This is a senior hands-on role. You'll stay in the codebase, shipping full-stack features in front of customers and writing the specs that turn ambiguous field requirements into engineering work. You'll also coach a growing team of forward deployed engineers on how to scope a problem, talk to a customer, and decide what to build. You lead by doing the work at a high standard, then showing others how.

The environments are demanding. You'll sit with operators whose decisions carry real consequences, work through legacy systems and imperfect data, and make judgment calls under ambiguity and time pressure. The instinct that matters most is telling a one-off customer ask apart from a pattern worth making reusable.

What you'll work on

Own customer deployments end-to-end, from discovery through go-live, accountable for the outcome rather than a slice of it.
Embed with customer teams, learn how their work actually gets done, and turn vague requirements into working software.
Build demos that put a sharp version of the idea in front of customers and surface real interest early.
Ship full-stack features fast while holding the quality line that production operational systems demand.
Write specs that turn customer needs into engineering work the rest of the team can execute against.
Decide what stays a one-off and what becomes a reusable primitive, so successful systems scale across deployments.
Coach junior forward deployed engineers on scoping, execution, customer communication, and technical judgment.
Work with product, machine learning, infrastructure, and full-stack teams to unblock deployments.

Requirements

5+ years as a strong forward deployed engineer, field engineer, or in a similar customer-facing engineering role.
Strong full-stack capability with TypeScript and React, plus Python or Node.
A track record of shipping real software in front of customers, not just internal tools or prototypes.
Comfort working directly with enterprise customers, including on-site when the deployment needs it.
High ownership, sharp communication, and the ability to operate through ambiguity without waiting for clean requirements.
The ability to coach junior engineers while staying hands-on yourself.

Nice to have