Senior Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering

Your work days are brighter here. We’re obsessed with making hard work pay off, for our people, our customers, and the world around us. As a Fortune 500 company and a leading AI platform for managing people, money, and agents, we’re shaping the future of work so teams can reach their potential and focus on what matters most. The minute you join, you’ll feel it. Not just in the products we build, but in how we show up for each other. Our culture is rooted in integrity, empathy, and shared enthusiasm. We’re in this together, tackling big challenges with bold ideas and genuine care. We look for curious minds and courageous collaborators who bring sun-drenched optimism and drive. Whether you're building smarter solutions, supporting customers, or creating a space where everyone belongs, you’ll do meaningful work with Workmates who’ve got your back. In return, we’ll give you the trust to take risks, the tools to grow, the skills to develop and the support of a company invested in you for the long haul. So, if you want to inspire a brighter work day for everyone, including yourself, you’ve found a match in Workday, and we hope to be a match for you too. About the Team The Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) organization sits at the intersection of Product, Engineering, and customer execution across Agent Factory, Sana, Products, and the Developer Platform. When Workday launches new AI agents and products, early deployments surface complex real-world challenges—from unstructured tenant data and intricate configurations to edge-case enterprise workflows. FDE pods deploy directly into active customer engagements to resolve technical friction, debug complex setups, and build lightweight integrations. Crucially, FDEs serve as the primary feedback engine for Product and Engineering: field insights, recurring customer friction, and configuration patterns are converted directly into scalable, out-of-the-box product capabilities. About the Role As the Forward Deployed (FDE) Manager, you will lead one or more FDE pods, reporting into the SVP who owns Workday’s Data Cloud platform portfolio. You are accountable for the health of the FDE operating model within your pods: making sure your engineers are deployed against the right customer engagements, that their time compounds into permanent product improvements rather than one-off delivery work, and that each engagement moves cleanly through selection, kick-off, and exit. You will manage people on software engineering career ladders, coach them through fast-moving, ambiguous customer engagements, and partner closely with Product Management, Engineering leadership, Workday Services leads, AI Deployment Architects, and Account Teams. You are the escalation point that keeps your FDEs focused on product-hardening work, and the internal voice that turns field evidence into roadmap decisions. What you'll do • Hire, coach, and develop a high performing group of FDEs. Own pod staffing and allocation across 2–4 pods (~10 customer projects per pod), matching FDE skills to the right engagements. • Run the engagement lifecycle, ensure FDEs are engaged in high value projects and track and report progress of your products toward a graduation scorecard (includes metrics such as live and reference-able customer counts, time to deploy/configure without FDE support, customer and support readiness etc) in partnership with the PAO team. • Partner with Workday Services leads, AI Deployment Architects, Account Teams (AE/MP/CSM), and Product Managers to keep each engagement properly resourced and the FDE's time focused on product hardening rather than broader account management. • Ensure the product feedback loop operates at pod level: field telemetry, recurring friction, and configuration patterns are captured, t