Director, Forward Deployed Engineering at Uipath

LIFE AT UIPATH The people at UiPath believe in the transformative power of automation to change how the world works. We’re committed to creating category-leading enterprise software that unleashes that power. To make that happen, we need people who are curious, self-propelled, generous, and genuine. People who love being part of a fast-moving, fast-thinking growth company. And people who care—about each other, about UiPath, and about our larger purpose. Could that be you? Role Overview As a Director of Forward Deployed Engineering, you will lead a senior team responsible for UiPath’s most strategic customer engagements and help define how the Forward Deployed Engineering function scales across the company. You will operate beyond the scope of individual delivery oversight, shaping the technical, organizational, and customer operating model for complex AI and automation programs. This role requires a combination of organizational leadership, deep technical fluency, executive customer engagement, and cross-functional influence. You will be accountable not only for the success of the engagements your team leads, but also for the broader systems that make those engagements successful, including talent quality, portfolio health, delivery standards, executive stakeholder alignment, reusable technical patterns, and the translation of field insight into product and company action. You will serve as both a people leader and a senior technical and business leader, helping UiPath deliver transformative outcomes for strategic customers while strengthening the long-term capabilities of the FDE organization. Key Responsibilities People Leadership & Team Development Recruit, hire, and retain top-tier Forward Deployed Engineering talent, building a team with the technical depth and customer acumen required for strategic engagements. Develop Principal and Sr. Principal FDEs through coaching, career planning, and targeted stretch opportunities that prepare them for technical and leadership progression. Set clear performance expectations, deliver candid feedback, and manage performance issues with fairness and rigor. Foster a team culture that values technical excellence, customer empathy, rapid learning, and collaborative problem-solving. Create development paths that accommodate both individual contributors and management tracks, ensuring the team retains its strongest technical talent. AI Engineering & Platform Mastery Define the technical and operational strategy for Forward Deployed Engineering across UiPath’s most strategic customer programs, shaping how the organization delivers enterprise AI and agentic automation at scale. Synthesize field signals across engagements into roadmap, platform, and investment priorities, and establish the reference architectures, governance models, and delivery standards that define how FDE teams build reusable, enterprise-ready AI solutions. Lead organizational standards for agent engineering, prompt operations, evaluation frameworks, LLM governance, and production deployment practices, while determining where the function should invest in emerging technologies and ecosystem capabilities. Set the bar for performance optimization, cost discipline, security posture, and reliability across customer implementations, ensuring the FDE organization delivers consistent, high-quality outcomes in production. Technical Excellence, Innovation & Delivery Define the technical and organizational standards that shape how Forward Deployed Engineering delivers AI and agentic automation across UiPath’s most strategic engagements. Drive cross-functional initiatives that improve scalability, consistency, and execution quality across teams, and translate customer insight, field patterns, and market signals into technical direction, co-innovation priorities, and product influence. Establish durable mechanisms to spread best practices and institutionalize learning across the function, while representing UiPath’s forward-deployed engineering approach to senior customers, industry audiences, and internal leadership. Customer & Business Impact Define the strategic direction for customer and business impact across the FDE organization, ensuring the most important engagements advance UiPath’s long-term growth, differentiation, and market leadership. Sponsor transformative lighthouse partnerships that showcase category-defining agentic outcomes and create reusable models for global field execution. Shape company strategy by converting broad customer signals and market patterns into product, platform, and investment priorities. Build and deepen executive relationships with senior customer stakeholders, positioning UiPath as a strategic partner in enterprise AI and automation transformation. Institutionalize how business value is measured, communicated, and amplified across the customer lifecycle. Collaboration, Influence & Leadership Elevate collaboration and leadership across the FDE organization, aligning teams, functions, and regions around the highest-impact customer and business priorities. Create strong operating partnerships with Product, Engineering, Sales, and Customer Success so that field perspective consistently shapes company decisions and execution. Build leadership depth by developing senior technical leaders into broader organizational influencers. Define and reinforce the standards, rhythms, and decision frameworks that create consistency across the FDE organization. Required Qualifications · 12+ years of software engineering and technical leadership experience, with a strong record of building and scaling customer-facing engineering functions in enterprise software · Deep expertise in LLM systems and AI application architecture, including prompt engineering, evaluation frameworks, and large-scale deployment of agentic workflows · Strong technical fluency in Python and/or TypeScript, with the ability to guide architecture and execution for production-grade AI systems · Proven track record of setting organizational technical strategy and leading complex, cross-functional initiatives that deliver measurable customer and business impact · Strong leadership in building, mentoring, and scaling high-performing technical teams and leaders · Track record of driving organizational excellence through technical standards, delivery frameworks, and repeatable best practices across teams · Willingness to travel to customer sites (up to 30–40%) and engage directly with strategic customers and partners Preferred Qualifications · Experience with enterprise automation platforms. · Background in machine learning, including experience with custom ML models, document understanding, or enterprise AI platform deployments · Familiarity with multiple LLM providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, and others, with a strong understanding of strategic model tradeoffs and enterprise adoption considerations · Experience with orchestration platforms, workflow engines, and large-scale integration architectures · Track record of shaping technical strategy for customer implementations and scaling repeatable delivery patterns across teams or regions · Experience building cross-functional partnerships across product, engineering, sales, and customer success to accelerate enterprise AI adoption · Prior experience overseeing customer use case implementations in enterprise software at scale What Makes This Role Special • Strategic Impact: Define technical strategy for UiPath's most important customer engagements and influence the product roadmap through direct customer insights • Cutting-Edge Technology: Work at the forefront of AI and agentic automation, implementing solutions that push the boundaries of what's possible with LLMs and enterprise automation • Organizational Leadership: Establish standards and best practices that shape how the entire FDE organization delivers customer solutions • Customer Partnership: Build executive relationships with strategic customers and serve as their trusted advisor on AI and automation strategy • Measurable Business Outcomes: See the direct impact of your work through deployed automations that save millions of dollars and transform how enterprises operate • Innovation at Scale: Co-create technical capabilities with Product and Engineering that unlock new use cases for customers across industries • Thought Leadership: Represent UiPath at industry conferences and establish yourself as a recognized expert in AI-driven enterprise automation Our Core Priorities At UiPath, we're guided by key business priorities that shape how Principal FDE Managers work: • Customer Centric: You'll be embedded directly with customers, making their success the foundation of your daily work • Breaking Silos: Operate at the intersection of customer organizations and UiPath teams, facilitating collaboration across all stakeholders • Improving Agility: Prototype rapidly, iterate based on real-world feedback, and embrace the principle that shipping is how we learn • Dealing with Ambiguity: Navigate unclear requirements, non-deterministic AI systems, and unpredictable field conditions with confidence • Building Focus: Prioritize high-impact use cases that deliver measurable business value and ensure solutions achieve depth and reliability #LI-MH1 Maybe you don’t tick all the boxes above—but still think you’d be great for the job? Go ahead, apply anyway. Please. Because we know that experience comes in all shapes and sizes—and passion can’t be learned. Many of our roles allow for flexibility in when and where work gets done. Depending on the needs of the business and the role, the number of hybrid, office-based, and remote workers will vary from team to team. Applications are assessed on a rolling basis and there is no fixed deadline for this requisition. The application window may change depending on the volume of applications received or may close immediately if a qualified candidate is selected. We value a range of diverse backgrounds, experiences and ideas. We pride ourselves on our diversity and inclusive workplace that provides equal opportunities to all persons regardless of age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression, national origin, disability, neurodiversity, military and/or veteran status, or any other protected classes. Additionally, UiPath provides reasonable accommodations for candidates on request and respects applicants' privacy rights. To review these and other legal disclosures, visit our privacy policy [Upgrade to PRO to see link]