> 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. # Founding Forward Deployed Engineer Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/0d4e6543d37b1522 Ajax posts a FDE role to build what the customer runs in New York, NY, at $210,000–$270,000 base, above the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,866 postings with pay. A founding forward deployed engineer will identify technical problems at large law firms, prototype solutions with customers, and turn successful prototypes into scalable paid products. Read from the employer’s posting on November 6, 2026. - [Ajax](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/ajax) Published November 6, 2026 · Updated November 6, 2026 **$210,000–$270,000** New York, NY On-site Today A founding forward deployed engineer will identify technical problems at large law firms, prototype solutions with customers, and turn successful prototypes into scalable paid products. - [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F0d4e6543d37b1522&placement=top) - [View posting at Ajax](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Ajax/ac67e779-e33c-4f99-a6dc-e46f441c73aa/application) Free for you. Upload your resume once, see which FDE postings fit you and why, and get introduced when you say so. We never share your profile with employers without your permission. ## At a glance ### Posted base pay $210K–$270K Above the median This job $210K to $270K. Typical senior FDE pay, the middle 50% of 1,866 postings: $160K to $220K, median $190K. ### The work Builds what the customer runs Balance 1. Mostly building 2. Mixed 3. Mostly pre-sales or support Project stages 1. Pre-sales (not covered) 2. Proof of concept 3. Implementation 4. Operations - **Coding**: Writes production code - **Builds for**: External customers - **Level**: Senior - **Role**: Individual contributor ### What they ask for Tools - **iOS** ### Do you meet what the posting states? The job is in New York, NY. Could you work there? Answer each one. Nothing is saved or sent. [What postings ask for, by background →](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths) ## More like this [Accenture](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/accenture) ### [Forward Deployed AI Engineer Sr Manager](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/2ef22c72ece768b6) Chicago, IL · Milwaukee, WI · +38 more 2mo ago $112,900–$366,300 [Stripe](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/stripe) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer, Privy](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/0d59ec2bd097d76f) New York, NY 14mo ago $190,400–$285,600 [Traversal](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/traversal) ### [AI Engineer - Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/a2b64acf2b49f19c) New York, NY On-site 4mo ago $200,000–$275,000 ## The job description from Ajax Posted by Ajax on Nov 5, 2026 ### Our mission Ajax is on a mission to help law firms capture and organize their latent knowledge and put it to work. The legal services industry takes in over $1T in annual revenue and boasts 1.5 million practicing attorneys just here in the US, but AI has clients wondering what exactly they're paying so much for. These clients are half-right: AI makes it faster to draft rote motions and review voluminous documents during discovery. But law firms have never been in the business of mutating and transmitting documents; they're paid to apply their firm's institutional knowledge and best practices to their clients' specific cases. Ajax automatically captures this knowledge and helps firms redeploy it toward faster, cheaper, and more effective legal services. ### The Company Our mission is lofty, but our product provides tangible, day-1 benefit to firms. We started by addressing the firm’s core revenue driver: our AI timekeeping product tracks attorneys' work and draftsbillable time entries for them, finding each attorney tens of thousands of incremental dollars per year. This product has 5x annual growth, hundreds of law firms, and thousands of DAUs. ### Metrics we’re proud of - **14** customers have invested in Ajax with their own money - **<1% Customer Churn**: we build long-term partnerships with our customers *(<10% annual is considered good)* - **97% Pilot Conversion Rate**: when we start pilots, we win them *(>70% is considered good)* - **130% Net Dollar Retention:** after firms convert with Ajax, happy users share it with more and more colleagues *(>120% is considered good)* ### The Role The core function of this role is to extend Ajax's data capture mechanism to solve previously-intractable technical problems for America's largest law firms. You will: - Discover customer problems - Prototype solutions - Extend these prototypes into paid products **By day 30**: you'll have built a new billing system integration, unlocking meaningful revenue in a new segment of the legal market. Building these integrations requires a bit of grit, but it's all worth it to see new firms start pilots and convert - and that starts the flywheel of customer trust that unlocks meaningful product work. **By day 60**: you'll ship a meaningful customer-facing feature. To figure out what to build, you'll lean on your initial relationships and get up to speed on how law firms operate. Some sample first projects you might work on: a client-management page, our iOS application, or **By day 90**: you'll work with bigger law firms, build on your customer relationships, and help us figure out what to build next. ### Who you are - **Ownership: **a wise man* once said the difference between senior engineers and junior engineers is that senior engineers own the feature into production and beyond. Is that you? - **Empathy**: to build features end-to-end, you must be able to walk in our customers' shoes. Our company makes BS work go away for lawyers that work really hard; that needs to speak to you. - **Resourceful**: you're scrappy: you prefer figuring bugs out yourself to throwing your hands up. my coworker Andrew ### You’ll excel here if: - You'd rather be a Product Engineer than a Solutions Architect - you like to build new features, prototype with customers, and drive solutions to scale - Your reward function is customer happiness (stolen verbatim from our 2nd engineer). - You want ownership - that means shipping your ideas and owning the results. - You like adventure. We’re solving an unsolved problem, so we need to be brave and rigorous in our exploration. The optimal number of unsuccessful experiments is higher than 0. I like working here because we win a lot, we’re solving thorny technical challenges, and at least once a week a customer tells me that our product is saving their life. If that sounds fun to you, please apply! ### FAQs - **How far along are we?** - We have over 250 paying law firms and thousands of users - Our team is 16 people - We’ve raised $15mm in venture funding from excellent VCs - **Can I work remotely?** - We usually work 5 days/week in-person in FiDi, NYC. We’re flexible, though, and we get that people are adults - Tyler worked from home when he had some family staying over, and Nat took a Wednesday off recently because she had to take delivery of a rare fish (don't ask). - **Compensation:** $210-$270k base + .25%-.75% equity. - The range is wide because we’re open to a range of seniorities. - Offers may extend above but will not dip below the stated range. - We also offer unlimited PTO, paid lunch/dinner on Fridays, and health/dental/vision. *Roger slept through his alarm and joined standup* *Innovation that excites from Brandon* *Tyler can be a lot* [View posting at Ajax](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Ajax/ac67e779-e33c-4f99-a6dc-e46f441c73aa/application) ## About Ajax Ajax captures lawyers' work activity and drafts matter-coded, billing-guideline-compliant time entries for review and release to billing systems. Unknown · 10–50 people ## Similar jobs [OpenAI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/openai) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), Legal-NYC](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/b7736da583f709f2) New York, NY Hybrid 2mo ago $185,000–$300,000 [Scale AI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/scale-ai) ### [Senior Frontier Agents Engineer (Forward Deployed Engineering)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/67b7c374d76c71b3) San Francisco, CA · New York, NY · +1 more 5mo ago $216,000–$270,000 [Salesforce](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/salesforce) ### [Lead Software Engineer, AI Labs (Product and Customer Facing)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/2d1c287890786103) San Francisco, CA · Washington, DC · +1 more 2w ago $148,500–$344,700 [Edra](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/edra) ### [Forward Deployed AI Engineer (New York)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/b8ccbd40023e39b3) New York, NY On-site 3mo ago $200,000–$300,000 [Minerva](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/minerva) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/2e4a93b1a8147acd) New York, NY On-site 9d ago $215,000–$241,000 - [Compare senior FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/senior) - [Similar jobs in New York metro](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?region=nyc-metro) - [Similar jobs that build what the customer runs](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?role=builds-for-customers) Hiring at Ajax and want this page changed or removed? Email info@nextmove.md and we take it down. ## Conditions - **Location**: New York, NY - **Work arrangement**: On-site - **Employment type**: Full-time - **Pay**: Employer postings · [How we read postings](https://nextmove.md/fde/method)