Associate Director, Forward Deployed Product Manager

Set and enforce a consistent bar for requirements quality, prototyping rigor, and documentation across the pod

Unblock FDPMs on ambiguous or contested requirements by making the call or escalating to the right owner

Own the relationship with Technical Account Managers and implementation leads at the program level, not just per-deployment

Review and sanity-check the workflows, prototypes, and briefs the pod produces before they reach clients or engineering

Identify which recurring patterns across deployments are worth generalizing, and drive that handoff into the core product roadmap

Build and maintain the shared playbook: templates, workflow patterns, prompting approaches, and documentation standards the pod reuses

Coordinate staffing and workload across concurrent deployments, and flag capacity gaps or performance concerns to the reporting manager

Surface pod-wide progress and blockers to product and delivery leadership

Stay hands-on enough to step into a deployment directly when a pod member is blocked, out, or the stakes require it

Prior experience as a forward-deployed PM, solutions consultant, or implementation lead — including having done the individual-contributor version of this work and knowing where it breaks under pressure

A track record leading a workstream, initiative, or informal team in a fast-moving, client-facing environment; direct people-management experience is not required

Strong systems thinking with the ability to spot a pattern across multiple different client contexts at once, and the judgment to make the call for the pod, not just yourself, with incomplete information

Hands-on comfort with prototyping, prompting, and workflow design — well enough to review someone else's work critically, not just do your own

Excellent communication skills across technical, non-technical, client-facing, and leadership audiences

High ownership and a bias to action, with the discipline to know when to step back and let an FDPM own it

Comfortable working directly for clients and influencing a team without a reporting line — leading by example, not authority

Likely from a startup, SaaS, or technical services environment, with a builder/operator orientation rather than a pure roadmap PM background

Born in 2001, Code and Theory is a digital-first creative agency that sits at the center of creativity and technology. We pride ourselves on not only solving consumer and business problems, but also helping to establish new capabilities for our clients. With a global client roster of Fortune 100s and start-ups alike, we crave the hardest problems to solve. We have teams distributed across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. The Code and Theory global network of agencies is growing and includes Kettle, Instrument, Left Field Labs, Create Group, Current, and TrueLogic.

Striving never to be pigeonholed, we work across every major category: from tech to CPG, financial services to travel & hospitality, government and education to media and publishing. We value the collaboration with our client partners, including but not limited to Adidas, Amazon, Con Edison, Diageo, EY, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lenovo, Marriott, Mars, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, and TikTok.

The Code and Theory network is comprised of nearly 2,000 people with 50% engineers and 50% creative talent. We’re always on the lookout for smart, driven, and forward-thinking people to join our team.

The compensation range for this role is $140,000 – $190,000 and spans multiple levels. We're open to hiring at the level that best matches the right candidate's experience. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, budget, and location.