Lead Forward Deployment Engineer
First seen by Alion on Sep 25, 2026.
About Exotel :
Exotel is India's leading AI-first cloud communications platform, powering over 25 billion customer conversations annually for 6,000+ enterprises across India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.
From voice and contact centres to AI-powered customer engagement, Exotel enables businesses to build reliable, scalable, and intelligent customer experiences.
As we continue to scale and prepare for our next phase of growth, we're looking for leaders who can help deliver exceptional customer outcomes.
About the Role :
The Lead - Forward Deployment Engineers (FDE) will lead a team of Resident Engineers embedded with enterprise customers to deliver integrations, customisations, automation, and technical solutions on Exotel's platform.
You will be responsible for team leadership, delivery excellence, customer escalations, stakeholder management, and driving technical best practices across customer engagements.
What You'll Do :
1. Team Leadership :
- Lead, mentor, and grow a team of 10 - 20 Resident Engineers.
- Drive hiring, onboarding, performance management, and career development.
- Build a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous learning.
2. Delivery & Operations :
- Own delivery quality across customer implementations and integrations.
- Ensure the successful execution of APIs, workflows, automations, AI bots, and platform customisations.
- Drive SLA adherence, operational excellence, and continuous improvement.
3. Customer Management :
- Act as the leadership escalation point for enterprise customers.
- Partner with customer IT, engineering, and business stakeholders.
- Participate in customer reviews, governance meetings, and escalation management.
4. Solutioning & Innovation :
- Guide integration architecture and technical solution design.
- Promote reusable frameworks, automation, and best practices.
- Drive adoption of AI-powered customer engagement solutions and emerging technologies.
What We're Looking For :
Experience :
- 6 - 10 years of experience in SaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, Contact Centre, or Enterprise Software environments.
- 2+ years of experience managing technical or delivery teams.
- Strong experience leading customer-facing technical projects and enterprise implementations.
Technical Expertise :
- Strong knowledge of REST APIs, Webhooks, CRM integrations, and enterprise applications.
- Experience with Salesforce, Zoho, Freshdesk, Zendesk, or similar platforms.
- Understanding of IVR, SIP, VoIP, WebRTC, Contact Centre, and Customer Engagement technologies.
- Working knowledge of AWS/GCP/Azure, Linux, SQL, and networking fundamentals.
Customer & Leadership Skills :
- Strong stakeholder management and escalation handling experience.
- Ability to engage confidently with enterprise customers and senior stakeholders.
- Excellent problem-solving, communication, and team leadership skills.
- Data-driven approach to delivery management and operational excellence.
Good to Have :
- Experience as a Resident Engineer Manager, Technical Account Manager, Solutions Engineering Lead.
- Exposure to Conversational AI, Voice Bots, Chatbots, and AI-powered CX solutions.
- Familiarity with platforms such as Twilio, Genesys, Amazon Connect, Yellow.ai, Freshworks, or similar technologies.
- PMP, ITIL, Scrum, or related certifications.
Skills
Forward Deployment Engineering, Solution Design, SaaS, CPaaS, Contact Center Analytics, REST API, CRM Integration, SIP, VoIP, AWS