{"id":2444273,"url":"https://alion.io/job/code-and-theory-associate-director-forward-deployed-product-manager","title":"Associate Director, Forward Deployed Product Manager","company":{"id":4352,"name":"Code and Theory","domain":"codeandtheory.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/code-and-theory","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":null},"role":"Solutions","role_family":"Solutions","seniority":"head","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Austin, United States","New York, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":140000,"max":190000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":190000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-30T18:19:48Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-12","last_verified_at":"2026-10-14T00:31:47Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":13,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":13},"description":"The Machine is the agentic operating system for marketing, built by Code and Theory. It plugs into the tools marketing teams use and turns disconnected workflows into a single intelligent system, connecting brand strategy, creative production, and media performance. The Machine helps power agencies across Stagwell's network and world-leading brands.\nWe're looking for a Lead Forward Deployed Product Manager who will provide functional leadership for a pod of 4-5 Forward Deployed Product Managers embedded across client implementations. This person sets the operating standard for how requirements, prototypes, and workflow decisions get made across every active deployment, and acts as the escalation point between the FDPM pod, Technical Account Managers, implementation engineering, and core product. This is not a reporting-line management role - pod people management sits with the Director of Product - but it is the person who sets the bar the rest of the pod works to.\nThey've done the individual-contributor version of this role and know where it breaks under pressure. Product-minded but still executional, they lead by example rather than by authority, and are comfortable operating at the level of a single deployment and the level of the whole pod in the same day. They're the person who builds structure and standards where none exist, then gets peers to actually use them - turning scattered patterns across deployments into a shared playbook and a steady feed of learnings back into the core product.\nWHAT YOU'LL DO\nSet and enforce a consistent bar for requirements quality, prototyping rigor, and documentation across the pod\nUnblock FDPMs on ambiguous or contested requirements by making the call or escalating to the right owner\nOwn the relationship with Technical Account Managers and implementation leads at the program level, not just per-deployment\nReview and sanity-check the workflows, prototypes, and briefs the pod produces before they reach clients or engineering\nIdentify which recurring patterns across deployments are worth generalizing, and drive that handoff into the core product roadmap\nBuild and maintain the shared playbook: templates, workflow patterns, prompting approaches, and documentation standards the pod reuses\nCoordinate staffing and workload across concurrent deployments, and flag capacity gaps or performance concerns to the reporting manager\nSurface pod-wide progress and blockers to product and delivery leadership\nStay hands-on enough to step into a deployment directly when a pod member is blocked, out, or the stakes require it\nWHAT YOU'LL NEED\nPrior experience as a forward-deployed PM, solutions consultant, or implementation lead - including having done the individual-contributor version of this work and knowing where it breaks under pressure\nA track record leading a workstream, initiative, or informal team in a fast-moving, client-facing environment; direct people-management experience is not required\nStrong systems thinking with the ability to spot a pattern across multiple different client contexts at once, and the judgment to make the call for the pod, not just yourself, with incomplete information\nHands-on comfort with prototyping, prompting, and workflow design - well enough to review someone else's work critically, not just do your own\nExcellent communication skills across technical, non-technical, client-facing, and leadership audiences\nHigh ownership and a bias to action, with the discipline to know when to step back and let an FDPM own it\nComfortable working directly for clients and influencing a team without a reporting line - leading by example, not authority\nLikely from a startup, SaaS, or technical services environment, with a builder/operator orientation rather than a pure roadmap PM background\nABOUT US\nBorn in 2001, Code and Theory is a digital-first creative agency that sits at the center of creativity and technology. We pride ourselves on not only solving consumer and business problems, but also helping to establish new capabilities for our clients. With a global client roster of Fortune 100s and start-ups alike, we crave the hardest problems to solve. We have teams distributed across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. The Code and Theory global network of agencies is growing and includes Kettle, Instrument, Left Field Labs, Create Group, Current, and TrueLogic.\nStriving never to be pigeonholed, we work across every major category: from tech to CPG, financial services to travel & hospitality, government and education to media and publishing. We value the collaboration with our client partners, including but not limited to Adidas, Amazon, Con Edison, Diageo, EY, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lenovo, Marriott, Mars, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, and TikTok.\nThe Code and Theory network is comprised of nearly 2,000 people with 50% engineers and 50% creative talent. We’re always on the lookout for smart, driven, and forward-thinking people to join our team.\nThe compensation range for this role is $140,000 - $190,000 and spans multiple levels. We're open to hiring at the level that best matches the right candidate's experience. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, budget, and location.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5292,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Creative Agencies","UI/UX Design","Web Development Services"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-13T13:05:36Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":76,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.847,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":13,"expected_fill_days":27,"reasons":["conf:0","win:mid"],"computed_at":"2026-10-14T01:26:12Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":190000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/code-and-theory-associate-director-forward-deployed-product-manager","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/code-and-theory-associate-director-forward-deployed-product-manager.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-14T01:26:12Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":2118,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-15T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":4352},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=4352"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fcode-and-theory-associate-director-forward-deployed-product-manager"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fcode-and-theory-associate-director-forward-deployed-product-manager"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fcode-and-theory-associate-director-forward-deployed-product-manager"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/code-and-theory-associate-director-forward-deployed-product-manager\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fcode-and-theory-associate-director-forward-deployed-product-manager"}]}