Forward Deployed Engineering Manager
Commerceiq · Mountain View, California, United States · Posted May 23, 2026
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The Company
CommerceIQ is building the AI platform that runs commerce for the world's largest brands. We are not selling AI demos. We are shipping AI agents for content, media, and sales into the workflows of the Fortune 100 every week.
2,200+
Customers
10 of Top 12
CPG Companies
900+
Retailers Connected
$200M+
Raised
Customers include Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Colgate-Palmolive, Mondelez, Samsung, and Kellogg's. Backed by SoftBank, Insight Partners, and Madrona. Headquartered in Mountain View with teams across the US, India, Canada, and the UK. Pre-IPO.
The Role
We have thousands of enterprise users, proven product-market fit across digital shelf analytics, retail media, and sales operations, and the Fortune 100 running on our platform. That part works. Now we are building something new: autonomous AI agents that are already in customer hands and scaling fast. This is a 0-to-1 build inside a company that has the distribution, the data, and the customers to make it real.
The AI Labs team operates as a startup within the company. It needs its own engineering leader. Someone who can recruit a world-class team in Mountain View, set the technical direction for agentic AI in commerce, and ship at a pace that matches the opportunity. We have engineering teams across the US, India, Canada, and the UK. Mountain View is the center of gravity for AI leadership.
This role reports directly to the Founders. We ship with Claude, GPT-4, and open-source models in production . Our engineers already write the majority of code with AI. Some things are great. Some things need to be rebuilt. The next leader will know the difference.
This is an onsite role with expectations that you are working from the office Monday-Friday
What You Will Do
Deploy AI Solutions with Customers
Work directly with enterprise customers to implement AI agents and workflows across content, media, and sales use cases
Customize and adapt CommerceIQ’s platform to fit real-world customer environments
Drive rapid iteration cycles based on customer feedback and usage
Bridge Customer Needs with Product Engineering
Translate ambiguous business problems into technical solutions and product requirements
Provide structured feedback to product and engineering teams to improve core platform capabilities
Identify patterns across customers and help shape repeatable product features vs one-off solutions
Lead a High-Impact Engineering Pod
Manage a small team of engineers focused on customer deployments and solutioning
Ensure high quality of delivery while maintaining speed and adaptability
Balance hands-on technical software development with ai tools like claude, cursor (~40%) with leadership and stakeholder management
Drive Business Impact
Understand customer KPIs and ensure deployed solutions drive measurable outcomes
Act as a trusted technical advisor to customer stakeholders
Partner with GTM and Customer Success teams to expand and deepen customer value
Close pilots
Shape the Future of AI at CommerceIQ
Bring frontline insights into how AI is used in production
Influence how CommerceIQ evolves from SaaS to AI-native workflows and agents
Help define best practices for deploying AI systems at enterprise scale
What We Look For
This is not a caretaker role. We need a builder. Here is what matters:
Builder with Customer Instinct.
Experience working in customer-facing engineering, solutions engineering, or consulting roles
Background in technology consulting, business consulting, or forward deployed engineering
Ability to operate in ambiguous environments and solve real business problems
AI Product Exposure.
LLM-powered features
AI copilots / assistants
Workflow automation
Understanding of how AI systems behave in real-world production environments
Product Business Thinking.
Ability to connect technical solutions to business outcomes
Strong intuition for what should be productized vs customized
Experience collaborating closely with product teams
Business Consulting exp is a must have
Leadership Execution.
Experience managing engineers or leading small teams
Ability to drive high-velocity execution in dynamic environments
Strong communication skills across technical and non-technical stakeholders
Why This Role is Unique
You are closest to the customer problem - not building in isolation
You influence both product direction and customer success
You operate at the intersection of: Engineering, AI, and Business outcomes
Compensation and Benefits
Base: $160,000 - $210,000
Equity: Significant pre-IPO stock options. This is a leadership seat and the equity reflects that. We are at a stage where senior hires still get meaningful ownership.
Benefits: Full medical, dental, vision. 401(k). Unlimited PTO.
Location: Mountain View, CA. Onsite. 15 minutes from Stanford campus.
Why join now:
The window is now. The company has product-market fit, revenue, and customers. The AI Labs team is being built right now. In 12 months th…