Description
About the Role
The Product Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) team is Salesforce's zero-to-one engine for new data product innovation. We embed directly with our most strategic customers to validate emerging Data 360 capabilities, harden the platform under real-world conditions, and transform every field insight into repeatable patterns that shape the product roadmap.
As a Senior Manager of Forward Deployed Engineers – Data 360, you will lead high-performing teams delivering enterprise-scale data transformations powered by Salesforce Data 360. You will combine people leadership, data architecture governance, operational excellence, and strategic growth ownership.
Most technical roles ask you to implement what already exists. This role asks you to define what comes next. You'll work with Data 360 features before they're named, solve data challenges before there are playbooks, and build the artifacts that the rest of the field will use for years. Your work doesn't just help one customer — it hardens the Data 360 platform for every customer that comes after.
The ideal candidate brings high agency and self-motivation to ambiguous, high-stakes environments. You thrive when there's no established answer, move fast without losing rigor, and treat every customer engagement as a learning opportunity that makes the platform better for everyone. You're endlessly curious, quick to adapt, and energized by data problems that haven't been solved yet.
Your Impact
Research & Field Validation
- Deploy and stress-test pilot Data 360 features with customers, identifying platform gaps and feeding structured findings back to Technology & Product
- Conduct feasibility research on novel data unification and activation use cases — determining what's possible, what's not, and what needs to change in the product to get there
- Co-develop hypotheses with Technology & Product and design experiments to validate them in the field
- Document and escalate critical engineering issues with detailed evidence packages to accelerate resolution
Customer Engagement
- Lead technical engagement of new Data 360 products and features
- Embed directly with customer teams to deeply understand their data environment and architect solutions that solve real data challenges at enterprise scale
- Run rapid prototyping and POC cycles to validate data ingestion, unification, segmentation, and activation use cases
- Serve as the primary technical advisor and escalation point for your customer portfolio
Product Acceleration & Feedback
- Build reusable accelerators, playbooks, and reference architectures that address critical Data 360 product gaps and directly shape the platform roadmap
- Partner directly with Product Managers and Engineers to influence roadmap priorities based on evidence captured directly from customers
- Represent the voice of the customer in internal product discussions and planning cycles
- Analyze competitive landscape to identify and validate Salesforce Data 360's key differentiators — informing both field engagements and product feedback loops
- Produce thought leadership, best practices, and enablement content that raises the bar for new Data 360 releases across the Salesforce community
Field R&D Engagement
- Support qualifying R&D activities in collaboration with Engineering; contribute to hardening agentic Data 360 products at enterprise scale
- Drive reusable IP creation — solution patterns, technical blueprints, and implementation guides — that accelerate field adoption of Data 360
Required Qualifications
- 12+ years of hands-on engagement in enterprise software or SaaS environments, with a strong foundation in data platforms and Salesforce ecosystem
- At least 5 years of experience in people management roles
- Demonstrated experience deploying enterprise data solutions — including data unification, identity resolution, segmentation, and real-time activation
- Deep hands-on expertise in Salesforce Data 360 — including data ingestion, data modeling, calculated insights, and activation frameworks
- Advanced proficiency in data architecture concepts: data lakes, data warehouses, lakehouse patterns, and CDP/MDM platforms
- Experience designing and governing enterprise data integration architectures using REST/GraphQL APIs, event-driven patterns, and middleware platforms
- Establish enterprise data governance frameworks: data quality, enrichment, privacy, retention, and compliance
- Translate business requirements into scalable data architecture, solution blueprints, and phased implementation roadmaps
- Lead architecture risk assessments, data performance impact analysis, and serve as escalation authority for complex data issues
- Data 360 delivery: Experience in at least 2 end-to-end Data 360 implementations with involvement in discovery, solution design, implementation, rollout, and defining the customer roadmap for enhancements
- Hands-on working knowledge across Data 360 capabilities including: data ingestion & unification, identity resolution, calculated insights, segmentation, activation, and data sharing
- Strong diagnostic and problem decomposition instincts — able to pinpoint whether a failure is a product bug, a configuration error, or a data quality issue, even in low-documentation environments
- Exceptional written communication skills: able to document builds, failures, and field observations in structured form that Product & Engineering can act on without a follow-up call
- Certifications: Salesforce Data 360 Consultant, Platform Developer I, Salesforce Administrator
- Work Location: Hybrid
Preferred Qualifications
- Prior experience in a forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, or embedded technical advisory role
- Experience with Salesforce Agentforce platform and AI-driven data activation use cases
- Deep expertise in enterprise data architecture, security, and integrations — including identity resolution, consent management, and data privacy frameworks
- Proficiency in one or more programming languages (Python, SQL, Apex, or Java)
- Experience with product telemetry and observability analysis to identify data platform patterns and surface actionable insights
- Familiarity with cloud data platforms such as Snowflake, Databricks, Google BigQuery, or AWS Redshift and integration patterns with Salesforce Data 360
- High agency, self-motivation, and agility quotient — you thrive in ambiguous, high-stakes environments, operate without a playbook, and default to experimentation and fast iteration over certainty
- Certifications: Salesforce System or Application Architect, Marketing Cloud Consultant