> AI agents: this is one page of Nextmove’s FDE site, in Markdown. Nextmove is a job board and free career service for forward deployed engineers (FDEs). Each posting is classified from its text, not its title: the kind of work, how much of it is production code, pre-sales weight, time at customer sites, travel, remote arrangement, level and posted base pay. The site also publishes the aggregates: median pay by level, metro, company and kind of work, and which companies started hiring FDEs each week. Every page under https://nextmove.md/fde is served this way; the index of pages is https://nextmove.md/llms.txt. # Deployment Strategist Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/e5bfe2d631eb3cf7 Istari Digital posts a FDE role to plan what the customer deploys first in Dayton, OH with no pay posted. Own program outcomes end to end, defining success and prioritizing problems for a small forward deployed engineering team. Read from the employer’s posting on November 6, 2026. - [Istari Digital](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/istari-digital) Posted Jul 21, 2026 by Istari Digital · open on Lever as of Nov 6, 2026 Pay not posted Dayton, OH On-site Full-time Own program outcomes end to end, defining success and prioritizing problems for a small forward deployed engineering team. - [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2Fe5bfe2d631eb3cf7&placement=top) - [View posting at Istari Digital](https://jobs.lever.co/istaridigital.ai/50f7efb2-310c-4854-8fbc-a86e90082f32/apply) Free. Upload your resume once, see why each FDE role fits, and get introduced only when you say so. ## At a glance ### Posted base pay Not posted Senior FDE postings, 1,849 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $160K to $220K, median $190K. ### The work Plans what the customer deploys first Balance **Mostly pre-sales or support** Project stages 1. Pre-sales (not covered) 2. Proof of concept (not covered) 3. Implementation 4. Operations Travel **Required, amount not stated** - **Coding**: No coding - **Builds for**: External customers - **Level**: Senior - **Role**: Technical lead ### Do you meet what the posting states? The posting reads as a senior role. What level are you at now? The job is in Dayton, OH. Could you work there? Which of these have you used in production? Answer each one. Nothing is saved or sent. [What postings ask for, by background →](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths) ## Conditions - **Location**: Dayton, OH - **Work arrangement**: On-site - **Employment type**: Full-time - **Travel**: Travel required, amount not stated ## More like this [Column](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/column) ### [Deployment Strategist (Travel Heavy)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/3554fedbed1bae4c) San Francisco, CA On-site 3w ago $150,000–$275,000 [Lorikeet](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/lorikeet) ### [Forward Deployed Product Manager](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/52e289f98e5a2d47) US Remote 13d ago Pay not posted [Didero](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/didero) ### [AI Deployment Strategist](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/fe2a33ef6e989df6) San Francisco, CA Hybrid 12d ago Pay not posted - [Other jobs at Istari Digital (1)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/istari-digital) ## The job description from Istari Digital Posted by Istari Digital on Jul 21, 2026 ### About Istari Istari Digital builds the connective tissue for defense acquisition. Our platform lets engineering models, simulations, and digital threads move securely across primes, suppliers, and government program offices, so a system can be tested, trusted, and fielded in months rather than years. We work at the center of some of the hardest problems in defense acquisition: getting the right model, to the right person, at the right classification, at the right time. We are a small, senior team, and every hire changes what the company can do next. ### The role: A Deployment Strategist at Istari is the single accountable owner of a customer program's outcome. You will embed with a small team of forward deployed engineers on one flagship program, or a small set of lighter engagements, and you will decide what matters: which problems the team attacks and in what order, what each demonstration, technical interchange, or test event has to prove, and how the deployment becomes something the customer cannot imagine operating without. Some days that means a working session with a prime's chief engineer. Other days it means briefing a program executive on why a digital thread changes their schedule risk, or reading the room after a review board and knowing exactly which conversation needs to happen next. On our largest federal programs, you also carry the formal Program Manager designation as contract key personnel. You are the government program office's day-to-day peer, and your name is on every deliverable commitment we make. You will have support from a shared Program Operations team that helps to assemble reports, format deliverables, and work the submission machinery behind you – but you answer for all of it. Your hours go to the outcome and to what the program becomes next, not to the tracker. You are not the primary builder here; we hire Forward Deployed Engineers for that, and your job is never to stand between them and the customer. You do need enough technical range that engineers trust your judgment and customers trust your answers. There is no fixed path into this role and no single background that produces a great Deployment Strategist. We are looking for people who would rather own the result than the process, and the more ownership you take, the more you will be given. ### What you'll do - Own the outcome of a program end to end: define what success means, choose the problems worth solving and the order to solve them in, and set what each milestone has to prove. - Embed with government and industry customers to understand their mission, their constraints, and their politics, and build relationships from end users to program executives that make a deployment durable. - Serve as named Program Manager on major federal programs: carry the program narrative through status reports, technical interchange meetings, and formal review boards, and stand accountable for every contract commitment. - Set direction and priorities for a small Forward Deployed Engineering team without intermediating between engineers and users, and protect their time from everything that is not the work. - Own the growth thesis: option years, follow-ons, and expansions grow out of delivered outcomes, and they are your responsibility to shape from inside the relationship. - Feed what you learn in the field back into product and engineering, so the platform gets better for every customer, not just the one in front of you. - Work day-to-day at or travel to customer sites, test events, hackathons, and program milestones as needed, typically domestic. ### Qualifications / Who thrives in this role We hire for judgment, curiosity, and a bias toward action more than for a specific degree or years of experience. That said, people who do well in this role tend to share a few things: - A track record of owning an outcome with no formal authority over the people delivering it, and finding that energizing rather than alarming. - Insider fluency in the following customer domain… the kind that comes from having lived it, along with a clear view of what is broken in how that world works today. Domain: air platform development and the lifecycle behind it — the research-to-transition pipeline for aerospace vehicles, autonomy, and propulsion; the acquisition, certification, and sustainment world that carries a weapon system from requirement to retirement; and the enterprise push to make digital engineering, model sharing, and digital threads real across all of it. - Technical conversancy across modeling and simulation, MBSE, digital threads, software development, and/or agentic design: enough to interrogate an engineering claim and be credible doing it, not necessarily enough to build it yourself. - Product sense, because this role sits closer to product management than to project management: knowing what to build next and what not to build at all, and telling the difference between a request that serves one user and a capability that belongs in the platform. - The range to brief a program executive in the morning and pair with an engineer in the afternoon. - An instinct for reading rooms and organizational dynamics, because adoption is won in the customer's org chart as much as in the software. - Comfort operating with incomplete information and shifting requirements, and the initiative to define next steps without being told. ### Preferred, not required - Highly desired: Experience in a forward deployed, deployment strategist, or field delivery role at a technology or defense company. - A prior key personnel Program Manager designation on a DoD or NASA contract, or time inside a government program office, uniformed or civilian. - Working familiarity with government contracting mechanics: deliverable cadences, milestone reviews, option years, and what a contracting officer cares about. - A track record of converting delivery into growth: an option year exercised, an expansion won, a pilot that became a program of record. - Eligibility to obtain and hold a U.S. security clearance, given the classified and controlled environments this role supports. ### Why Istari You will work directly with the executives and engineers building the company, not through layers of process. You will see your work reach real programs and real missions quickly – the outcomes you own here end in test events and fielded systems, not slide decks – and you will have room to shape a role that does not yet have a fixed definition. This is a small team solving a problem that matters, and we are looking for people who want to build the next chapter of it with us. We've built a team of what we call Wizards -- people who bring depth in their domain and range across others, who are collaborative without being deferential, and who genuinely care about what we're building. We celebrate individual contributions, give feedback early and often, and argue about ideas so we can execute together. There's no room here for hierarchy for its own sake, or for busywork that doesn't move the mission. We are outcomes-driven, and we hold each other to a high standard — with genuine respect for each person's expertise and wellbeing. Focus is rewarded. Finish is remembered. Facts are friendly. Even when they are not fun. Fellowship is fundamental. Make others successful. [View posting at Istari Digital](https://jobs.lever.co/istaridigital.ai/50f7efb2-310c-4854-8fbc-a86e90082f32/apply) ## About Istari Digital Builds decentralized software for aerospace and defense teams to connect engineering models, simulations, and AI workflows without centralizing the underlying data. Series A · 50–100 people ## Similar jobs [Elm AI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/elm-ai) ### [AI Deployment Strategist (Supply Chain, Sourcing, Procurement, and Compliance)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/29d8a7c4738f36f6) US · city not listed Hybrid 2mo ago Pay not posted [R1](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/r1) ### [Forward Deployed Process Engineer Lead - R37](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/b15aedae1e4c9f57) US Remote 2w ago $175,000–$306,101.78 [Lyric](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/lyric) ### [Forward Deployed Supply Chain Engineer (US)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/a8295786fe284b04) US Remote 2mo ago $100,000–$170,000 [Scale AI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/scale-ai) ### [Forward Deployed Product Manager, Public Sector](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/23c2051be6799ef6) New York, NY · Washington, DC 3mo ago $200,000–$345,000 [Salesforce](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/salesforce) ### [Forward Deployed Process Senior/Principal Process Consultant](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/67ce6e554b7cdd03) San Francisco, CA · Chicago, IL · +5 more 7w ago $117,200–$246,000 - [Compare senior FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/senior) - [Similar jobs that plan what the customer deploys first](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?role=strategist) Hiring at Istari Digital and want this page changed or removed? Email info@nextmove.md and we take it down. Employer postings · [How we read postings](https://nextmove.md/fde/method)