Director, Forward Deployed Engineering & AI GTM Lead

Job description

Aircall is a unicorn, AI-powered customer communications platform used by 22,000+ companies worldwide to drive revenue, resolve issues faster, and scale customer-facing teams. We’re redefining customer communications by bringing voice, SMS, WhatsApp, and AI together into one seamless workspace. Our momentum comes from a simple idea: help teams work smarter, not harder. Aircall’s AI Voice Agent automates routine calls, AI Assist streamlines post-call work, and AI Assist Pro delivers real-time guidance so people can do their best work. The result is higher revenue, faster resolutions, and teams that scale with confidence. Aircall is headquartered in Paris, our European HQ, with a strong North American presence anchored in Seattle, our North American HQ, and teams across Madrid, London, Berlin, San Francisco, New York City, Sydney, and Mexico City. We’ve built a product customers love and a business that’s scaling quickly, backed by world-class investors and driven by rapid AI innovation across multiple product lines. At Aircall, you’ll join a company in motion. We’re ambitious, product-driven, and execution-focused, with visible impact, fast decisions, and real growth. **How we work at Aircall:** We’re customer-obsessed, data-driven, and focused on delivering meaningful outcomes. We value ownership, continuous learning, and thoughtful speed. If you thrive in a collaborative, fast-moving environment where trust and impact matter, you’ll feel at home here. **About the Role:** The Director, Forward Deployed Engineering & AI GTM Lead owns the technical execution, go-to-market effectiveness, and organizational adoption of **Aircall’s AI Communication Agent**. This role leads and scales the Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) team while remaining closely engaged in customer-facing work to ensure consistency, quality, and impact across all deployments. Operating at the intersection of Applied AI, technical delivery, and go-to-market execution, this leader works across Sales, Account Management, Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Support to ensure AVA is successfully positioned, implemented, and scaled. The role plays a critical part in shaping how Aircall brings AI to market - translating field execution into repeatable models, and customer learnings into product and GTM evolution. ### Key Responsibilities: - Lead, coach, and grow the Forward Deployed Engineering team from **3 FDEs today to 7–8 by H1 ‘26**, setting clear standards for technical excellence, execution rigor, and customer impact. - Stay closely involved in active customer engagements and strategic initiatives, providing technical guidance, solution direction, and senior-level support where needed. - Drive strong AI Agents go-to-market execution by embedding disciplined operating practices across the team, including pipeline hygiene, forecasting accuracy, and effective collaboration with Sales, AM, SE, Partners, and CEs. - Pilot the team using data-backed operating models, defining and tracking clear input and output KPIs to assess performance, drive accountability, and accelerate AI Agent adoption (e.g., activity metrics, time-to-value, deployment quality, usage and revenue impact). - Maintain deep technical credibility by staying close to the product and real-world use cases — comfortable coding in at least one language and highly fluent with APIs, integrations, and modern system architectures. - Guide the design and delivery of scalable AI Agent deployments, including integrations with CRMs, help desks, and System-of-Truth platforms. - Build and evolve playbooks, reference architectures, and deployment frameworks that enable repeatable, high-quality execution as the team scales. - Lead cross-functional programs focused on AI Agents success, coordinating efforts across Product, Engineering, Marketing, Support, and GTM teams. - Represent field execution and customer needs in close partnership with Product and Engineering, influencing roadmap priorities and delivery decisions. - Drive internal enablement and upskilling across GTM teams, ensuring Aircall Voice Agent is clearly understood, well-positioned, and effectively adopted. ### Qualifications: - **7+ years of experience** in technical sales, solutions engineering, forward-deployed engineering, or professional services roles, with prior people-management experience strongly preferred. - Strong entrepreneurial mindset, as this is a startup within a startup (even better if former founder) - Strong technical foundation, including hands-on experience with APIs, integrations, and data-driven systems; ability to code in at least one language (e.g., Python or JavaScript). - Demonstrated ability to lead execution in complex, cross-functional environments while staying close to the field. - Experience working within overlay or specialist GTM models, with strong understanding of sales cycles, forecasting, and execution best practices. - Proven ability to build scalable playbooks and operating models that move teams beyond ad hoc delivery. - Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, translating between technical and business audiences. - Strong interest in AI and applied automation; prior experience in AI, conversational AI, or adjacent domains is a significant plus. - Experience with CRMs, help desks, and System-of-Truth architectures is highly desirable. ### What Success Looks Like - Agents are consistently deployed with high quality and clear business impact across customers. - The FDE team scales effectively with shared standards, reusable frameworks, and predictable execution. - Go-to-market execution for Agents is disciplined, data-driven, and improving quarter over quarter. - Cross-functional teams operate with strong alignment around AI Agents' priorities, launches, and roadmap decisions. - Field learnings continuously inform product evolution and GTM strategy, strengthening Aircall’s leadership in applied AI.