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Tacto is building a Procurement Intelligence Platform for manufacturing, connecting AI to the physical world of supply chain and procurement. You will build the Forward Deployed Engineering function from zero—a new organizational capability where engineers embed directly in customer environments, work with their data and systems, and translate learnings back into product.
Your core responsibilities:
- Charter and build the FDE function from scratch: define operating model, quality standards, hiring criteria, and success metrics. You own the playbook.
- Hire and lead a high-performing team of Forward Deployed Engineers. You set the bar and grow the organization.
- Design customer engagement processes: how engineers scope work, embed in customer environments, build solutions, and hand over. This is the strategic core of the role.
- Build hands-on in customer production environments: write agents, data pipelines, and custom logic on Tacto's platform. Lead by shipping.
- Convert one-offs into product: work directly with Product and Engineering to identify patterns and turn customer-specific work into platform capabilities. Prevent the FDE org from becoming an expensive consultancy.
- Lead the first FDE hires and set the standard through your own work. Find rare engineers who are both technically excellent and credible with C-level customers.
- Own escalations with Heads of Procurement and IT. Be the senior technical presence customers trust.
- Be AI-native: use AI tools to expand what the function can accomplish, measure impact, and embed learnings into team practices.
You bring 5+ years building software close to customers (forward deployed engineering, deployment-style roles, or technical program leadership at Manager+ level in product companies or top-tier consulting). You code in Python and SQL, understand data pipelines and integration architecture, and want to keep writing code. You have 1+ years leading engineers or have built something from zero with people following you. You are a zero-to-one operator comfortable with ambiguity, with strong product instinct to distinguish one-offs from patterns. You have senior presence with customers including C-level, and the backbone to be clear about commitments. Native or C1 German and fluent English required.
Tacto is Sequoia and Index-funded with €50M+ backing, based in Munich with 100+ in-office team members. The company is building the intelligence layer for industrial AI, starting with procurement—a €1T+ market where AI adoption is still nascent. You'll have a direct line into the product roadmap and shape how leading global industrials adopt AI.
