Engagement Director - Forward Deployed Engineering

Avathon · Pleasanton · $170,000–$220,000 (stated in the posting)

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Who We Are & Why Join Us 

Avathon is the leading Industrial AI autonomy platform, helping customers across heavy industries - energy, mining, manufacturing, aerospace, defense, and logistics - accelerate the journey toward autonomous operations. Our platform is built on a Computational Knowledge Graph foundation that contextualizes and connects operational data across siloed systems, bringing together time series, structured, unstructured, and machine vision data to power AI-driven applications in asset performance management, supply chain intelligence, visual AI, and global trade management. With capabilities spanning digital twins, normal behavior modeling, natural language processing, and computer vision, Avathon delivers real-time predictive intelligence and agentic decision-making at industrial scale. 

Cutting-Edge AI Innovation - Join a team at the forefront of AI, developing groundbreaking solutions that shape the future. High-Growth Environment - Thrive in a fast-scaling startup where agility, collaboration, and rapid professional growth are the norm. Meaningful Impact - Work on AI-driven projects that drive real change across industries and improve lives. 

Learn more at: avathon.com 

Role Overview 

The Engagement Director is Avathon's most senior client-facing delivery leader — accountable for the commercial health, executive relationships, and strategic outcomes of our largest and most complex customer engagements. Where a Program Manager runs the plan, the Engagement Director owns the partnership. You operate at the intersection of delivery accountability and business development, ensuring that every engagement Avathon undertakes becomes a reference win, a contract expansion, and a long-term strategic alliance. 

You lead multiple concurrent engagements across strategic accounts, managing cross-functional FDE teams — program managers, technical architects, AI engineers, and change management leads — while maintaining direct executive sponsorship relationships at the customer. You are equally at home in an operational steering committee and a C-suite business review, and you bring the commercial acumen to identify, shape, and close expansion opportunities from within the delivery motion. 

Key Responsibilities 

Strategic Account Leadership 

• Own executive relationships at the VP, SVP, and C-suite level across Avathon's strategic accounts — serving as the trusted senior partner who connects delivery outcomes to business value 

• Define and drive the long-term engagement strategy for each account: expansion roadmap, capability phasing, success milestones, and multi-year partnership vision 

• Lead executive business reviews (EBRs) and steering committee meetings — presenting progress, value realization metrics, and forward-looking roadmap with authority and credibility 

• Identify, shape, and advance expansion opportunities within existing accounts — new use cases, additional modules, expanded user populations, and adjacent business units 

• Serve as the ultimate escalation point for client concerns, commercial issues, and strategic misalignments — resolving them with urgency and executive presence 

Engagement Governance & Delivery Oversight 

• Oversee the delivery health of multiple concurrent engagements — setting governance standards, holding program managers accountable to scope, schedule, and quality, and intervening on at-risk programs 

• Establish and enforce engagement governance frameworks: RAID management, milestone tracking, change control, financial reporting, and executive communication cadences 

• Ensure each engagement is staffed with the right mix of skills, that resource plans are defensible, and that team performance is actively managed and developed 

• Own engagement P&L — tracking revenue recognition, managing cost to deliver, forecasting margins, and optimizing profitability without compromising outcomes 

• Drive continuous improvement across the FDE delivery practice — institutionalizing lessons learned, refining delivery playbooks, and raising the standard of execution with every engagement 

Commercial & Revenue Accountability 

• Partner with Sales and Account Management to shape statements of work, commercial terms, and engagement structures that are both compelling to clients and commercially sound for Avathon 

• Own renewal, upsell, and expansion deal qualification and progression within the delivery motion — converting delivery trust into commercial growth 

• Develop and present business cases and ROI analyses that demonstrate Avathon's value to both economic buyers and operational stakeholders 

• Provide pipeline visibility and account-level revenue forecasts to FDE and executive leadership, with the precision and confidence of a business owner 

• Champion customer reference-ability — driving the conditions that produce case studies, executive testimonials, and public advocacy for Avathon's platform 

Team Leadership & Organizational Development 

• Lead, develop, and inspire a team of Program Managers and Delivery Leads — setting a high performance bar, coaching through complexity, and building organizational capability 

• Create clarity of roles, decision rights, and accountability structures across complex multi-team engagements — ensuring alignment without creating bureaucracy 

• Model Avathon's leadership culture in the field: operating with ownership, urgency, and intellectual honesty under pressure 

• Build the talent pipeline for the FDE practice — identifying high-potential team members, creating stretch opportunities, and partnering with recruiting on future hiring needs 

• Represent FDE interests in cross-functional forums with Product, Engineering, Sales, and Marketing — ensuring the voice of the field shapes platform and go-to-market decisions 

Client Value Realization 

• Define success metrics and value realization frameworks at engagement kickoff — ensuring outcomes are measurable, commercially relevant, and tracked throughout delivery 

• Drive adoption and change management at the executive and operational levels — aligning client leadership around the behavioral and process changes required for AI-led operations 

• Lead post-go-live value reviews that tie platform utilization to business KPIs (uptime improvement, cost reduction, cycle time, revenue impact) and frame the case for next investments 

• Capture and synthesize strategic insights from the field — customer priorities, competitive intelligence, platform gaps — and deliver them as structured input to Avathon's roadmap and strategy 

Preferred Qualifications 

• 12+ years of experience in enterprise technology delivery, management consulting, or professional services — with at least 4 years in a senior engagement leadership or client partner role 

• Proven track record managing strategic accounts in excess of $5M ACV — owning P&L, executive relationships, and commercial growth within the delivery motion 

• Experience leading complex, multi-workstream AI, data platform, or OT/industrial technology deployments in asset-intensive industries (energy, manufacturing, mining, aerospace, or logistics) 

• Demonstrated ability to build and manage high-performing cross-functional delivery teams in fast-paced, client-embedded environments 

• Strong commercial acumen — able to structure engagements, read contracts, manage margin, and identify and advance expansion opportunities with or without a dedicated sales resource 

• Executive communication and presence: able to command a room of C-suite stakeholders, deliver difficult messages with clarity, and build lasting advisory-level trust 

• Familiarity with AI/ML platform deployments and the organizational change required to adopt data-driven and autonomous operations in industrial environments 

• Experience with program governance frameworks (PMI, PRINCE2, SAFe, or equivalent) and the judgment to apply them proportionally — not bureaucratically 

• Willingness and ability to travel up to 80%; based in Pleasanton, CA or Austin, TX 

Qualifications 

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Business, or a related field; MBA or advanced degree preferred 

• PMP, PgMP, or equivalent program/engagement management certification is a plus 

• An active U.S. Government security clearance is advantageous 

• Excellent problem-solving, executive communication, and organizational leadership skills 

• Must be authorized to work in the United States without current or future company sponsorship 

Compensation & Benefits 

• California Base Salary:  $170,000 - $220,000

• Performance bonus tied to account growth and delivery outcomes 

• Equity in the form of stock options 

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage 

• 401(k) participation 

• Generous PTO and company holidays 

• Ongoing learning and development opportunities 

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