Forward Deployed Engineering Manager

About the role

Forward Deployed Engineering exists to close the gap between world-class sensor technology and mission success in the field. As Forward Deployed Engineering Manager, you will build and lead a global team of engineers who embed directly with customers — on vehicles, on vessels, on ranges and in integration labs — to design, integrate, validate and ship navigation solutions into complex defence and commercial platforms.

This is a player-coach leadership role for a deeply technical operator. You will co-own the technical dimension of the customer journey from qualification through to fielded capability, and you will be accountable for the commercial outcomes that flow from it: win rate, time-to-integration and product-customer fit.

The role is a core pillar of the Growth organisation, reporting directly to the Chief Growth Officer. You will lead the organisational machinery — processes, tools, and playbooks — that enable our regional GTM teams to succeed. You will work in close partnership with regional leaders (Americas, EMEA, APAC) to ensure FDE activity is forecastable and directed at the priorities which drive growth for their business.

Roles & Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & GTM Alignment:

• Define and optimise the FDE charter to support the global operating model, ensuring technical resources are prioritised based on commercial impact and XL deal capture.
• Recruit, develop and retain engineers who combine deep technical capability (INS, GNSS, sensor fusion, robotics) with customer-facing excellence
• Establish deployment playbooks: pre-sale technical qualification, on-site integration sprints, acceptance testing and handover to sustainment
• Post-sale and support operations: replace pre-sale qualification and integration sprints with a Tier 1–3 technical support hierarchy, SLA management, ticketing, and RMA/hardware repair workflows
• Lead in challenging environments: act as a point of escalation for internal queries as well as customer issues. Responsibly hire new technical talent, developing the technical capability of the global FDE organisation, working to ensure the FDE team is highly engaged

Support and align across regions:

• Lead globally while acting as the functional counterpart to the Americas and EMEA Applications/FDE leads, sharing playbooks, tooling and benchmarking practice
• Provide surge support on major pursuits in other regions where APAC expertise (or product-line depth) is decisive
• Lead a cross-region FDE community of practice so customers experience one consistent standard worldwide
• Where feasible, operate effectively in a matrix: the regions own their own P&L and their own teams, so influence is earned through demonstrably useful standards, tooling and support rather than exercised through reporting lines
• Where aligned with key growth priorities, manage cross-region surge support as requested, prioritised, resourced and cost-recovered

Own technical wins:

• Contribute to the technical strategy on strategic pursuits and key accounts
• Drive win rate through superior technical positioning: demonstrations, trials, benchmarking campaigns and integration proofs-of-concept
• Act as the senior technical escalation point for the highest-stakes customer implementations and queries

Close the product feedback loop:

• Translate field-derived insight into structured product requirements; hold a formal seat in product roadmap governance
• Champion product-customer fit as a measurable discipline, not a slogan — instrument it, report on it, improve it
• Partner with R&D on ruggedisation, interface and firmware priorities driven by real deployment friction

Commercial and growth partnership:

• Partner with regional commercial leadership on account strategy, opportunity qualification and bid/no-bid decisions up to a non-bespoke threshold
• Support pricing and scoping of engineering services attached to INS sales
• Work with revenue operations to instrument FDE activity — pursuit involvement, technical win/loss, time-to-integration — so its commercial contribution is visible and forecastable
• Partner with marketing on technical proof: demonstrations, benchmarking content, reference deployments and conference presence
• Lifecycle ownership: assume direct ownership of the customer post-deployment, driving long-term product adoption, user training, and ongoing client sentiment
• Represent the company technically at customer executive briefings, industry conferences and defence expos

Note: This is a full-time, permanent role based in Sydney, Australia. Regional and international travel of approximately 30–40% is expected, including to austere test and trial environments.

KEY MEASURABLES

Short term:

• Commercial Execution: Improve technical win rate to 50% and reduce time-to-integration through standardised delivery playbooks.

Long term:

• Customer Success & Retention: Own post-deployment health to drive long-term adoption, targeting improvements in repeat purchase and expansion and churn prevention.
• Support Performance: Achieve top-tier metrics for CSAT, First Response Time (FRT), and Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR).

QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE & SKILLS

Qualifications:

• Degree in mechatronics, mechanical, electrical or aerospace engineering (or equivalent depth demonstrated in the field)

Experience:

• 8+ years across applications engineering, solutions engineering, presales or field engineering in navigation, robotics, autonomous systems or adjacent deep-tech
• Demonstrated record of winning complex technical pursuits, experience in defence very strongly preferred, but aerospace or maritime domain experience is possible
• Hands-on fluency with inertial navigation, GNSS/GNSS-denied operation, sensor fusion, and platform integration (serial/CAN/Ethernet interfaces, timing, mounting and calibration realities)
• Experience leading and scaling distributed technical teams, or clear readiness to step from senior IC/team-lead into functional leadership
• Willingness to travel globally, including to austere test and trial environments

Nice to have:

• Experience within a Five Eyes defence program environment (land, maritime or uncrewed systems)
• Familiarity with export controls as they affect field engineering work
• Second language and cross-cultural fluency for global account work

Advanced Navigation is an equal opportunity employer. Some roles require the ability to obtain security clearances and may be subject to citizenship or export-control requirements.