> 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. # Forward Deployed Engineer Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/1a5ab4958d57cacb Sphere posts a FDE role to build what the customer runs in San Francisco, CA, at $200,000–$260,000 base, above the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,864 postings with pay. Embeds with Sphere’s strategic customers to identify cross-border compliance challenges and deliver custom, production-grade software and integrations. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026. - [Sphere](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/sphere) Posted Apr 15, 2026 by Sphere · open on Ashby as of Nov 8, 2026 **$200,000–$260,000** + equity San Francisco, CA On-site Full-time Embeds with Sphere’s strategic customers to identify cross-border compliance challenges and deliver custom, production-grade software and integrations. - [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F1a5ab4958d57cacb&placement=top) - [View posting at Sphere](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/sphere/7b5f39b0-6f3f-4bc4-9469-74ae9722d85a/application) 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 $200K–$260K Above the median Midpoint $230K · median $190K This job $200K to $260K. Senior FDE postings, 1,864 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $160K to $220K, median $190K. ### The work Builds what the customer runs Balance **Mostly building** Project stages 1. Pre-sales 2. Proof of concept (not covered) 3. Implementation 4. Operations (not covered) - **Coding**: Writes production code - **Builds for**: External customers - **Level**: Senior - **Role**: Individual contributor ### Do you meet what the posting states? The posting reads as a senior role. What level are you at now? The job is in San Francisco, CA. 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**: San Francisco, CA - **Work arrangement**: On-site - **Employment type**: Full-time - **Pay**: ## More like this [Zip](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/zip) ### [Software Engineer, Forward Deployed (Mid - Senior Level)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/db3d12a17ae46903) San Francisco, CA Hybrid 7w ago $150,000–$250,000 [Databricks](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/databricks) ### [Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - Digital Native Business ](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/d7d1858268bd328d) San Francisco, CA 7w ago $182,000–$250,208 [Guild.ai](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/guild-ai) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer ](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/9d5934309cf265c1) San Francisco, CA Hybrid 6w ago $180,000–$300,000 ## The job description from Sphere Posted by Sphere on Apr 15, 2026 ### ABOUT SPHERE Every breakthrough in trade infrastructure has followed the same pattern: reduce a transaction cost, expand the market. Containerization for goods. SWIFT for money. Stripe for payments. Compliance is one of the last and largest — and the hardest, because trade rules aren't data to be looked up. They're a complex adaptive system with 190+ sovereign jurisdictions, in different languages, changing constantly, reacting to each other. Sphere built the system that solves it. Our AI (TRAM) ingests global trade law, interprets it, resolves conflicts across jurisdictions, and produces compliance determinations more reliable than human experts. We handle the entire lifecycle — calculation, registration, filing, remittance — at millisecond latency with zero downtime. - **Backed by a16z and YC.** $21M Series A, 30%+ month-over-month growth, customers include ElevenLabs, Replit, Deel, Runway, and Lovable. - **Small team, global surface area**. Everyone owns a domain that would be a full team at a larger company. San Francisco, in office. - **The problem keeps compounding**. Expanding into input tax, withholding, e-invoicing, tariffs — each multiplies the complexity. Tens of millions of transactions today, billions ahead. ### THE ROLE As a Forward Deployed Engineer at Sphere, you’ll embed directly with Sphere's most strategic customers to understand their cross-border business workflows, identify the highest-impact compliance challenges, and design and deliver custom solutions that make Sphere fit seamlessly into their operations. You won't just be executing a playbook, you'll be defining it as you go. Working directly with our Founder, Engineering team, and GTM teams, you'll define how Sphere shows up in customer environments and shape what the forward-deployed motion looks like as we scale. This is a rare opportunity to have an outsized influence on both the product and the customer experience. This role is ideal for engineers who thrive on owning problems end-to-end, from discovery to deployment, and who are energized by the challenge of translating intricate, jurisdiction-specific regulatory requirements into elegant, production-grade software. We're looking for someone who is as comfortable in a customer conversation as they are in a codebase, and who brings the same rigor to building internal processes as they do to solving customer problems. ### WHAT YOU'LL DO - Onboard customers pre-contract, get accounts functional in Sphere - Navigate customer billing system integrations - Pull and interpret liability reports, help customers understand exposure - Guide clients through the complexity of understanding and managing their global tax liability - Guide customers through VAT ID collection, address hygiene, and regional compliance - Bridge between customer needs and the engineering roadmap - Be entrenched with the customer by ensuring Sphere is integral to all of the company’s revenue compliance needs - Research new compliance requirements (e-invoicing, input tax, etc.) end to end - Identify patterns across customers - what custom work is being requested repeatedly - Scope and write tight technical PRDs/proposals ready to hand to core engineering - Build custom features and integrations on top of the Sphere platform for key accounts - Identify custom builds that could be scaled and deployed across all customers as new features or products ### REQUIREMENTS - Experience in an FDE or customer-facing engineering role. - Experience executing and shipping bespoke customer features, end-to-end. - Ownership. Takes a problem from ambiguous to shipped without being told how, keeps the customer outcome in sight the whole way, and doesn't drop threads. - Relentlessly curious. You don't wait to be pointed at the answer - you go find it, and you know when to pull in someone who knows more than you. - Strong communication skills. We work at an extremely fast pace, so clear, concise communication is essential. - Customer obsession. You’re going to be talking to a lot of people in the finance realm (Controller, Heads of Finance, Heads of Tax). You need to like them and obsess over them. - Very strong attention to detail. When you work with numbers, this is a non-negotiable - it’s not enough to be 99% right. ### NICE TO HAVES - Experience working with large volumes of transaction data. You’ll be getting very familiar with it! - Experience in Python and Django. Our core application backend and data pipeline services are built with Python and Django - Experience with React. Our entire front end is built in React. ### WHO YOU ARE *You'll thrive here if:* - **You're a Dog.** You've been underestimated, gone through struggle, and never stopped running. You have a chip on your shoulder and enormous drive. You look at Stripe, Deel, and Flexport all punting on compliance and think: *good, that means the opportunity is ours.* Hunger beats pedigree. - **Early stage is in your bones.** You've built things where there's no playbook and nobody handing you the answer. You define the problem instead of waiting for instructions. - **You own it end to end.** Give you a goal and you figure out your own path. Small team, global surface area — everyone owns a domain that would be a full team at a larger company. No one tells you how. - **You believe speed and accuracy are both possible.** We're building a complex product that requires robustness and 100% uptime, and we have to build at our customers' pace. Move fast. Don't break things. Both. - **Being in the room is a feature, not a cost.** Being in SF isn't a policy, it's how the work gets done. The speed and density of collaboration we need doesn't survive over video. *This won't be a fit if:* - You need structure handed to you or ambiguity feels draining rather than motivating - You want to manage people more than own hard problems (we're a flat, experienced team — everyone builds) - You're used to "good enough" shipping (small errors have outsized impact here) [View posting at Sphere](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/sphere/7b5f39b0-6f3f-4bc4-9469-74ae9722d85a/application) ## About Sphere Sphere automates global indirect tax compliance, including monitoring, registration, calculation, filing, and remittance, through software and local authority connections. Series A · 50–100 people ## Similar jobs [Amigo](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/amigo) ### [Senior Forward Deployed Engineer [NYC or SF]](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/cb56ee3948417bae) New York, NY On-site 3mo ago $200,000–$260,000 [Campfire](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/campfire) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/f935f5733b809a63) San Francisco, CA On-site 5w ago $180,000–$220,000 [Matroid](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/matroid) ### [VLM & VFM Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/55bdc7eeef3cb713) Palo Alto, CA On-site 4w ago $150,000–$300,000 [Black Forest Labs](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/black-forest-labs) ### [Solutions Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/5280b837122a6a78) San Francisco, CA Hybrid 10d ago $180,000–$285,000 [West Monroe](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/west-monroe) ### [Senior Applied AI Engineer/Architect](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/8a4b60dcc900fac7) Boston, MA · Chicago, IL · +7 more 4mo ago $225,000–$304,200 - [Compare senior FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/senior) - [Similar jobs in SF Bay Area](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?region=sf-bay-area) - [Similar jobs that build what the customer runs](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?role=builds-for-customers) Hiring at Sphere and want this page changed or removed? 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