Director, Forward Deployed Engineering – Federal

C3 AI (NYSE: AI), is the Enterprise AI application software company. C3 AI delivers a family of fully integrated products including the C3 Agentic AI Platform, an end-to-end platform for developing, deploying, and operating enterprise AI applications, C3 AI applications, a portfolio of industry-specific SaaS enterprise AI applications that enable the digital transformation of organizations globally, and C3 Generative AI, a suite of domain-specific generative AI offerings for the enterprise. Learn more at: C3 AI C3 AI's Forward Deployed Engineering organization sits inside some of the most mission-critical customers in the U.S. government, turning signed contracts into production AI systems that civilian agencies and Department of War (DoW) / DoD components run their mission on. As Director, you will own a portfolio of our most strategic federal accounts end to end, from signature through production and into expansion, and you will lead the team of Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) and Forward Deployed Team Leads (FDTLs) who make that delivery happen. You will be two things at once: the executive the customer, program office, and contracting stakeholders trust to tell them the truth about their program, and the leader your team trusts to give them clear direction, real support, and room to grow. You set the technical and commercial roadmap for each engagement in your portfolio, run the relationship at the program executive and agency leadership level, and build, staff, and develop the team executing against that roadmap, including the accreditation and security work required to get a system into production on federal networks. This is a role for someone who has run high-stakes federal client relationships, whether in top-tier consulting, federal systems integration, or technical program leadership, and who is ready to build and lead a team rather than sit inside a single account. You will operate at the executive table with the customer and the program office, go deep enough technically and procedurally to catch a bad scope, a wrong estimate, or an accreditation risk before it becomes a delivery risk, and build a team capable of delivering, including into accredited and high-side environments, without you in the room. U.S. Citizenship required. Active DoD security clearance (Secret or higher) preferred. Responsibilities Portfolio leadership and delivery Own delivery outcomes across a portfolio of federal accounts spanning civilian agency and DoW/DoD customers, from signed SOW through production go-live and into expansion, coordinating Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs), Forward Deployed Team Leads (FDTLs), Presales, and customer stakeholders against a single delivery plan per engagement. Set engagement structure across your portfolio — scope, milestones, dependencies, and value hypotheses — and hold the line on scope discipline as mission priorities, budget cycles, and program office direction shift. Run executive briefings and steering committee updates across accounts, translating delivery status, technical trade-offs, and accreditation posture into language a program executive or agency sponsor acts on. Own escalation management across your portfolio; when an engagement or an authorization timeline is at risk, you are the first call and the person who drives it back to green. People management and team leadership Manage a team of Forward Deployed resources across your portfolio, including hiring, onboarding, performance management, and career development, accounting for the clearance levels and environment access each account requires. Allocate staffing across accounts based on account priority, risk, growth stage, and clearance or access requirements, and reallocate quickly when an engagement's needs change. Set the technical and delivery bar for your team, and coach FDTLs and FDEs on how to run their own accounts — including their own ATO / cATO processes — with the same rigor you apply to yours. Own headcount planning for your portfolio: build the case for new roles, identify underperformance early, and manage out where needed. Create a bench strong enough that losing any single cleared person does not put an account at risk. Technical fluency and scoping Lead or oversee technical discovery across your portfolio, mapping customer and mission workflows, identifying data and integration constraints, and defining MVP scope for new use cases. Translate customer and agency objectives into sequenced technical roadmaps that FDEs and FDTLs execute against, including deployment paths across IL boundaries (IL2 through IL6) and into SIPR, JWICS, or other air-gapped environments where required. Hold architecture and accreditation conversations with customer engineering stakeholders, ISSMs, and Authorizing Officials (AOs) credibly enough to evaluate trade-offs and catch scope, feasibility, or authorization problems before they become delivery risk. Oversee ATO / cATO stra