Deployment Director

Physical industries like energy, utilities, and infrastructure underpin our economy and daily lives. Yet many of the organizations responsible for them are constrained by fragmented processes, fragile legacy systems, and decades-old ways of working.

These organizations must manage aging assets, deliver major infrastructure programs, meet tighter standards, and keep essential services running. Cogna helps them solve the operational problems that slow this work down. Our AI platform captures the context behind complex workflows and turns it into AI-native applications that help teams work faster, more accurately, and more reliably.

Since our launch in May 2023, we've seen very strong customer traction and revenue growth. We're backed by leading VCs, including Notion Capital and Hoxton Ventures, and we're building a world-class team to take on one of the most important challenges of our time. We're a team of around 80 today, on a path to Series B and scaling towards 150.

Making an impact at this scale takes people who are curious, adaptable, and motivated by purpose. If our mission resonates with you, we encourage you to apply, even if your experience doesn't match every requirement. We are committed to building a diverse team that reflects the industries and societies we serve.

Overview

As a Deployment Director, you are a senior member of our Deployment team, working alongside the wider Go To Market (GTM) team and our Exec leadership, with responsibility for growing the business. The role is multi-faceted: you will play a critical role in ensuring we win new customer accounts, that our teams deliver value to enterprise customers through the application of our precision software solutions, all the while ensuring we stay true to our roots as a product company. This position requires a unique blend of strategy, commercial acumen, product judgment, and external/internal leadership skills.

Our Deployment Directors work across both new and existing major accounts, leading pre-sales work at potential customers while ensuring the success of current enterprise partnerships. You will be trusted to have the agency to know what needs to happen next to ensure success at all your accounts, and to execute on it, whether in the early stages of winning new business or multiple years into an enterprise relationship. You will identify the most valuable areas for us to deliver solutions for a customer, architect the value of those solutions in a way that the most senior partners at our clients buy into, and then lead the teams scoping and building those solutions in our platform.

The Deployment roles at Cogna blend the most interesting, and challenging, parts of Forward Deployed Engineering roles, Solutions Strategists, Customer Success, Value Engineering and more into a uniquely Cogna-shaped package. You will lead a team of Solutions Strategists/Analysts to deliver value for our clients, responsible for their growth and ensuring we continue to grow and evolve the Solutions teams. While we can tell you what the roles look like today, we have no certainty around what the team looks like in 12 months - it’s up to you to help shape it.

What you’ll do

• Client Strategy: Work directly with senior partners at customers (C-Suite, Head Of) to understand their challenges and objectives. Partner with our Exec leadership to turn this understanding into executable strategy, driving forward new business.
• Account Leadership: Run complex accounts and ensure they continue to grow. Direct Deployment teams working across the accounts with agency, ensuring our customers experience transformative value from working with Cogna.
• Solution Ratification: Understand how our teams should best use the Cogna platform to solve customer problems, coaching others on best practice and acting as an exemplar, ensuring we never diverge from a product-focused lens that delivers exponential value for our customers.
• Relationship Management: Build strong internal relationships across all parts of the business (especially the Exec, GTM and engineering), and understand when (and when not) to involve others
• Industry Expertise: Maintain an up-to-date understanding of trends and innovations in utilities, energy, manufacturing, and construction sectors to inform strategic decisions and technological advancements.
• Team Leadership: You will manage Deployment Strategists and Analysts, ensuring they are on a growth trajectory to move upwards through the company, while maintaining high performance
• Get Hands On: While you are in a leadership role, we are still a small company and at times you’ll need to get your hands on the platform and build. Whatever needs to be done, needs to be done, regardless of seniority.

What we’re looking for

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related STEM field.
• At least ten years of proven experience in a job where solving complex client problems using customisable software/product was core to the role: this could be product management, systems engineering, a deployment strategist role, technical consultancy, etc.
• Experience of leading and growing high-performance teams, including hiring, role mapping, resourcing, performance management
• Experience leading complex £Multi-Million enterprise accounts at multiple stages (pre-sales, post-sales, expansion)
• Strong analytical skills, the ability to solve challenging problems under pressure and articulate complex concepts in a clear and compelling manner.
• Evidence of owning workstreams end-to-end, building new capabilities even when nobody asked you to, and situations where you created the playbook where none existed
• Experience writing code, leveraging the benefits of AI, and manipulating data.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, manage multiple accounts simultaneously and deal with ambiguity.
• Experience in the utilities, energy, manufacturing, or construction industries is a bonus.
• Willingness to travel as needed to meet with clients and oversee deployments.

What we offer

• Competitive salary and share option plan
• 25 days annual leave, plus public holidays
• Excellent pension scheme, fixed to 7.5%
• Private healthcare, including family cover and pre-existing conditions
• Flexible hybrid working with 2 days per fortnight in our Farringdon office
• Regular social events and offsites
• Access to a gym and fitness classes in our office building