FDE - Enablement (Pre-Sales)

Location: San Jose, CA or New York City
Remote: Considered; travel required for customer engagements
Team: Enterprise Architecture & Delivery

About Tessera Labs

Tessera Labs is redefining how enterprises adopt and operationalize Artificial Intelligence. Backed by Foundation Capital and led by a world-class founding team, we build multi-agent AI systems that automate complex business workflows across platforms such as SAP, Salesforce, Workday, Snowflake, MuleSoft, and more.

Our mission is to bring real AI automation to the enterprise — with speed, precision, and measurable impact. We move fast, operate with extreme ownership, and build at the frontier of applied AI.

Role Summary

The Forward-Deployed Engineer (FDE) – Enablement is a pre-sales, customer-facing technical role that sits at the intersection of Sales, Product, and Engineering. This role is responsible for enabling revenue by demonstrating technical credibility, shaping customer solutions early, and accelerating deal cycles through technical presentations, proofs of concept, hands-on workshops, and Statement of Work (SoW) support.

Unlike delivery-focused FDE roles, this position is not responsible for full production deployment ownership. Instead, the FDE – Enablement focuses on solution framing, technical validation, and customer confidence during the sales and pre-contract phases.

This role is ideal for engineers who enjoy storytelling with technology, thrive in customer conversations, and can translate complex AI systems into compelling, concrete business value.

Why This Role Matters

Enterprise buyers do not buy AI on vision alone — they buy confidence.

FDEs in Enablement are critical to establishing Tessera’s technical credibility, de-risking decisions for customers, and ensuring deals move forward with clear scope, architecture, and expectations.

You will:

• Be the technical face of Tessera in strategic sales cycles

• Influence deal strategy, scope, and solution design

• Shape early customer feedback that informs the product roadmap

• Work closely with Sales, Architecture, and Product to win complex enterprise opportunities

Key Responsibilities

Pre-Sales Technical Enablement

• Partner with Sales and Account teams to support enterprise sales cycles

• Act as the primary technical resource during discovery, evaluation, and validation phases

• Translate customer business challenges into AI-driven solution approaches

Technical Presentations & Demonstrations

• Deliver high-impact technical presentations to customer audiences, including engineers, architects, and executives

• Present Tessera’s multi-agent AI architecture, capabilities, and differentiators clearly and credibly

• Tailor demos and narratives to specific customer use cases and industries

• Support internal enablement by creating reusable demo assets for Sales

Proofs of Concept (PoCs)

• Design and execute customer-specific Proofs of Concept to validate technical feasibility and value

• Build lightweight prototypes or workflows that showcase Tessera’s AI agents in real enterprise scenarios

• Collaborate with Engineering to ensure PoCs reflect product direction and technical best practices

• Clearly communicate PoC results, limitations, and next steps to customers and internal stakeholders

Technical Workshops

• Lead hands-on technical workshops with customer teams to explore architectures, workflows, and integrations

• Facilitate whiteboarding sessions and live solution design discussions

• Help customers understand how AI agents fit into their existing systems and operating models

Statement of Work (SoW) & Deal Support

• Provide technical input into Statements of Work, including scope definition, assumptions, dependencies, and risks

• Support effort estimation, solution boundaries, and implementation approach

• Partner with Delivery and Architecture teams to ensure smooth handoff post-sale

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with Product, Engineering, Architecture, and Delivery teams

• Capture customer feedback and objections to inform product improvements

• Help standardize pre-sales technical assets, demo patterns, and workshop formats

Technical Skills & Experience

Software & Systems

• Strong hands-on experience with Python; familiarity with JavaScript/TypeScript is a plus

• Experience working with APIs, backend services, and enterprise integrations

• Exposure to enterprise platforms such as SAP, Salesforce, Workday, Snowflake, MuleSoft, or similar systems

Applied AI & Agent Systems

• Understanding of LLMs, AI orchestration, and agent-based architectures

• Ability to explain AI system behavior, tradeoffs, and limitations to customers

• Experience applying AI to real business workflows (not just demos)

Cloud & Architecture

• Familiarity with cloud environments (AWS, GCP, or Azure)

• Ability to discuss scalability, security, observability, and governance at a high level

• Comfort white-boarding and explaining end-to-end architectures

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in software engineering, solutions engineering, or technical consulting

• 2+ years in a customer-facing, pre-sales, or enablement role

• Experience delivering technical presentations, demos, or PoCs to enterprise customers

• Strong communication skills with both technical and non-technical stakeholders

• Ability to operate effectively under ambiguity and fast-moving sales cycles

• Experience contributing to or supporting Statements of Work

• Willingness to travel to customer sites, primarily within the U.S.