> 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/1aec0681eb976cc3 Deep Infra posts a FDE role to prove the product works before the sale in Palo Alto, CA, at $150,000–$195,000 base, below the staff+ FDE median of $225,000 across 388 postings with pay. DeepInfra is hiring its first Forward Deployed Engineer to own the technical win for enterprise AI inference deals end-to-end, from first call to production. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026. - [Deep Infra](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/deep-infra) Posted Aug 14, 2026 by Deep Infra · open on Gem as of Nov 8, 2026 **$150,000–$195,000** Palo Alto, CA Full-time DeepInfra is hiring its first Forward Deployed Engineer to own the technical win for enterprise AI inference deals end-to-end, from first call to production. - [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F1aec0681eb976cc3&placement=top) - [View posting at Deep Infra](https://jobs.gem.com/deep-infra/am9icG9zdDpqGXt9xT3SQ5Rqg4yXDKBF) 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 $150K–$195K Below the median Midpoint $173K · median $225K This job $150K to $195K. Staff+ FDE postings, 388 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $197K to $262K, median $225K. ### The work Proves it works before the sale Balance **Mostly building** Project stages 1. Pre-sales 2. Proof of concept 3. Implementation 4. Operations - **Coding**: Configuration only - **Builds for**: External customers - **Level**: Staff+ - **Role**: Technical lead ### Do you meet what the posting states? The posting reads as a staff-level role. What level are you at now? The job is in Palo Alto, 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**: Palo Alto, CA - **Employment type**: Full-time - **Pay**: ## More like this [LangChain](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/langchain) ### [Deployed Engineer (Early Career- SF)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/cf677e9e9ca98360) San Francisco, CA On-site 3mo ago $160,000–$185,000 · OTE [HackerRank](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/hackerrank) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/4dae1501bc8f76a6) Santa Clara, CA · Mountain View, CA Hybrid 6w ago $160,000–$185,000 [Greptile](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/greptile) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/9ea315669e7fc622) San Francisco, CA On-site 2mo ago $140,000–$220,000 ## The job description from Deep Infra Posted by Deep Infra on Aug 14, 2026 ### About DeepInfra DeepInfra is building the foundation for companies to use modern AI in production — simply, reliably, and at scale. Our team has deep experience building large systems that serve hundreds of millions of users, and we're bringing that same level of rigor to a rapidly evolving AI inference space. Our mission is to make advanced AI available to people and teams everywhere. We're an early, tight-knit team where you can influence product direction, try bold ideas, and drive meaningful work forward quickly. If you want to join a fast-growing company at a defining moment, we'd love to talk. DeepInfra is backed by leading investors including A.Capital, Felicis, 500 Global, Georges Harik, Samsung Next, Supermicro, Upper90, Peak6, SVAngel and Nvidia. ### Why this role matters As DeepInfra's enterprise pipeline grows, our customers need a technical partner who can run rigorous evals, defend benchmarks, and speak fluently to both engineering and procurement — someone who can own the technical win from first call through production. This is a pioneering role. You'll work closely with Sales, our co-founders, and the engineering team on the deals that matter most. You'll own the technical win end to end: running head-to-head bake-offs against leading AI providers, tuning deployments on the latest hardware, and turning what you learn into reusable assets that make every future deal faster to close. As our first FDE, you'll also define what the function looks like as GTM scales. ### What You'll Do - Own the technical win and the POC timeline, working closely with Sales and Engineering, from call one. - Design and run reproducible benchmark harnesses (TTFT, ITL, throughput/GPU, p95/p99) and quality-parity evals. - Run head-to-head bake-offs against leading AI providers — and win them. - Tune model-to-hardware deployments on B200/B300/GB300 NVL72. - Build cost-per-token models and write migration plans. - Handle enterprise security and compliance review, and get deployments to launch readiness. - Own account health post-signature, driving usage reviews and expansion. - Turn what you learn into reusable benchmark reports, reference architectures, and AE enablement material. ### What You Bring - Customer-facing engineering with an owned technical outcome at an infrastructure or ML platform company. - Strong Python skills. - Dual-audience presence with commercial instinct — credible with a skeptical staff engineer, clear with a CFO, and able to tell a technical objection from a procurement one. ### Bonus - Hands-on experience with inference internals: vLLM, SGLang, or TRT-LLM, batching, KV cache math, quantization. - Experience with agentic or coding-assistant workloads at scale. - Prefix-cache-heavy long context workloads. - Diffusion image/video, ASR/TTS, or multi-LoRA serving. - Open-source contributions to vLLM or SGLang. - Deep NVLink/InfiniBand topology knowledge. ### Why DeepInfra - Define DeepInfra's Forward Deployed Engineering function from day one and have a direct impact on its direction. - Work directly with co-founders and the inference team on the deals that matter most. - Join a small, high-performing team where your work ships quickly and reaches customers around the world. - Help shape how enterprises adopt some of the world's leading open-source AI models. ### How we work Three traits define the people who thrive here, and this role leans on all three. **Initiative.** We take ownership and step in where we can add value. Whether it’s starting something new, improving what exists, or helping move ideas forward, we aim to be proactive and thoughtful in how we contribute. **Drive.** We’re energized by hard problems. Building AI infrastructure is complex, and we lean into that. We care about doing things well, moving fast, and continuously improving — because solving meaningful challenges is what motivates us. **Grit.** Things don’t always work on the first try — and that’s expected. We stay persistent, adapt quickly, and learn as we go. We take setbacks seriously, but not personally, and use them to get better. ### Compensation The base pay range for this role is $150,000 – $195,000 per year. [View posting at Deep Infra](https://jobs.gem.com/deep-infra/am9icG9zdDpqGXt9xT3SQ5Rqg4yXDKBF) ## About Deep Infra Purpose-built AI inference cloud that runs open-source and proprietary models through low-latency APIs and dedicated GPU infrastructure. Series B · 10–50 people ## Similar jobs [Hightouch](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/hightouch) ### [Forward Deployed Product Manager](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/582d222c53e6731f) New York, NY · San Francisco, CA Remote 5mo ago $175,000–$230,000 [IFS](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/ifs) ### [Pre-Sales Forward Deployed Engineer - IFS Loops](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/299d0f4d19ba24b2) Palo Alto, CA 11d ago $190,000–$230,000 · OTE [Deloitte US](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/deloitte-us) ### [ConvergeProsperity - Lead Product Forward Deployed Engineer for FSI Signals - Products & Platforms](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/3c1178cd0b1aad93) Multiple US offices 2mo ago $134,500–$265,100 [Anthropic](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/anthropic) ### [Applied AI, Research Engineer ](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/ad03554ab362a16c) San Francisco, CA · New York, NY Hybrid 2mo ago $300,000–$400,000 [Arcade.dev](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/arcade-dev) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/32d820f2cb811407) San Francisco, CA Hybrid 5mo ago From $180,000 - [Compare staff+ FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/staff) - [Similar jobs in SF Bay Area](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?region=sf-bay-area) - [Similar jobs that prove the product works before the sale](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?role=presales) Hiring at Deep Infra and want this page changed or removed? 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