Hire a Head of FDE
The person who turns a few heroic engineers into a function. We find leaders who have built deployment teams and can scale them without losing the craft.
Free to interview. 90-day replacement guarantee.
What a Head of FDE Actually Does
Hire, level and grow FDEs, and define what great looks like.
Decide pod structure, coverage ratios and where FDEs sit in the customer journey.
Make deployments repeatable and feed the roadmap.
Answer for time to value, retention and expansion on deployed accounts.
Why Hire Your Head of FDE Through Us
Vetted on Both Halves
Tested on the hands-on skills this role needs and in a live customer role-play. Nobody reaches your loop untested.
Run by a Former FDE
Asher Cohen, a former FDE who has sat in the customer's office at midnight, is on every search. He knows which interview answers fall apart on site.
A Shortlist, Not a Pile
Scorecards and role-play clips instead of a stack of resumes. If they'd lose the room, you never see them.
Signs You Need One
- You have three or more FDEs and nobody manages them full-time.
- Every deployment is done differently.
- Your FDEs are burning out or leaving.
- Leadership can't see what the FDE team is delivering.
What Great Looks Like
- Has built or scaled a deployment team before.
- Can still go on site and do the work.
- Talks about outcomes, not utilization.
- Hires people better than themselves.
Running the Interviews Yourself?
Our hiring playbook has the scorecard, the customer role-play script and the questions we use on every candidate. Take it and run our loop in yours.
Sample Job Description
A first draft you can paste into your applicant tracking system and make your own.
About the role. You'll build and lead our Forward Deployed Engineering team as we scale from [N] to [N] customers.
You'll hire and develop FDEs, design how we deploy and partner with sales and product leadership.
You have experience leading a deployment, solutions or FDE team, and a background writing production code.
Hiring a Head of FDE: Your Questions
Still have questions? Talk to a former FDE, or email hello@forwarddeployedhiring.com.
Free to interview. 90-day replacement guarantee.
When should we hire a Head of FDE?
Usually around your third to fifth FDE, or earlier if your founders are still running deployments. The signal: every deployment looks different and nobody owns fixing it. Hire too early and there's no team to lead. Hire too late and they spend year one rebuilding habits instead of setting them.
Should they come from a big company?
Not necessarily. Someone who built a team from scratch often fits a startup better than someone who inherited a big one. We look at what they built, how they hired and whether they can still go on site and do the work.
How is this search run?
As a dedicated search. We start with calibration sessions alongside your leadership team and agree on the scorecard. Then we go after leaders who aren't looking. Candidates design a deployment model for your business, and the customer role-play becomes an escalation they have to own. A Head of FDE who can't handle a customer can't teach anyone else to.
How long does it take to hire a Head of FDE?
Your first vetted shortlist arrives in under 5 days from kickoff. Every candidate on it has passed our core vetting and the role-play built around your customer. We aim to get you to a signed offer in 3–4 weeks. The biggest factor is how fast your team can run final interviews. We handle the scheduling around them so nothing stalls.
How do you vet candidates for this role?
Every candidate has passed our core vetting, run by us: a customer role-play plus a skills test built for this role. For engineering roles, that's a technical screen. For strategists, it's a business case. For your search, shortlisted candidates also run a short role-play built around your customer. You get a scorecard and a 3-minute clip, so you can judge for yourself. Your team runs the final interviews.
Is it really free to interview?
Yes. Meet every candidate on your shortlist with no commitment. If nobody clears your bar, we keep searching. Every hire is backed by our 90-day replacement guarantee.
Will you push us to hire someone?
No. If a candidate is strong on the skills test but struggles with the customer, we tell you, even if it means restarting the search. Our concerns go on every scorecard in writing. We'd rather you wait a week than make the wrong hire.
What if the hire doesn't work out?
If your hire leaves or isn't working out in the first 90 days, we find you a replacement. We rerun the search with what we learned, vetted the same way, so the second shortlist is sharper than the first.
See Your First Head of FDE Candidates in Under 5 Days
Free to interview. 90-day replacement guarantee.