> 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 Software Engineer

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/2ac5993c488c9fa6

Candid Health posts a FDE role to build what the customer runs in San Francisco, CA, at $140,000–$220,000 base, below the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,864 postings with pay. Candid Health is hiring a Forward Deployed Software Engineer to work at the intersection of technology, business strategy, and customer outcomes. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026.

- [Candid Health](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/candid-health)

Posted Nov 7, 2025 by Candid Health · open on Ashby as of Nov 8, 2026

**$140,000–$220,000** + equity San Francisco, CA On-site Full-time

Candid Health is hiring a Forward Deployed Software Engineer to work at the intersection of technology, business strategy, and customer outcomes.

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F2ac5993c488c9fa6&placement=top)
- [View posting at Candid Health](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/candidhealth/71365073-41fb-40a8-b23a-3e02306770a5/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

$140K–$220K Below the median

Midpoint $180K · median $190K

This job $140K to $220K. 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 (not covered)
2. Proof of concept (not covered)
3. Implementation
4. Operations

- **Coding**: Writes production code

- **Builds for**: External customers

- **Level**: Senior

- **Role**: Individual contributor

### What they ask for

Experience

- **5+ years** hands-on software engineering

Background

- **Software engineering**

Tools

- **AI/ML**

### Do you meet what the posting states?

The posting asks for 5+ years. How many do you have?

The posting reads as a senior role. What level are you at now?

The job is in San Francisco, CA. Could you work there?

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**:

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## The job description from Candid Health

Posted by Candid Health on Nov 7, 2025

### The Role

At Candid Health, we’re searching for talented, customer-obsessed software engineers to join our Forward Deployed Engineering team. Our Forward team is placed at the critical intersection of technology, business strategy, and customer outcomes: they work side-by-side with our leadership, clients, and product teams to solve highly complex technical challenges that are critical to our customers. Their role isn't just to advise from the outside; it's to actively design, engineer, and integrate long-term, evolving software solutions that work with the client's technical landscape and drive real-world impact.

### What You’ll Do

- **Design and implement solutions:** Design and architect technical solutions in the core product that align with client needs. Leverage the latest AI/ML models and techniques to automate solutions in novel ways. Fix bugs, implement features, and solve the most critical problems our customers are facing across our entire platform.
- **Partner with customers and operations:** Build solutions and relationships with the subject-matter experts, users, managers, and executives that rely on our platform in a way that builds trust. Serve as the technical expert for our products and services. Clearly communicate the technical aspects of our solutions to both technical and non-technical audiences, addressing questions and concerns effectively.
- **Have broad organizational impact:** Work closely with cross-functional teams, including sales, product management, and product engineering, to ensure seamless solution implementation. Provide valuable feedback to enhance our products based on client needs and market trends. Leverage your experience to build solutions that improve the product across our quickly growing customer base. Work with other product and engineering teams to build in a way that is accretive towards long-term product vision.

### Who You Are

- You have 5+ years of hands-on experience in software engineering.
- You are motivated by solving real-world problems that drive mission outcomes.
- You have an entrepreneurial spirit and a growth mindset.
- You are deeply empathetic and have a strong desire to solve problems for customers in a highly leveraged way that is accretive towards product strategy and builds trust along the way.
- You enjoy building software iteratively with subject matter experts, ultimately delivering an exceptional solution that solves the problem.
- You are a strong collaborator and influential engineer who communicates and partners well with internal and external clients.
- You thrive in fast-paced environments. You want to move fast and deliver at a high quality bar. You know how to unstick yourself and others when necessary.

----

### Testimonial: Hear from one of our FDEs at Candid!

### What does your day-to-day look like?

*“My day-to-day varies a lot, which is one of my favorite aspects of the job! Some days, it is similar to a typical software engineering role where I am writing and reviewing code. Other days, I am working with my team to design a solution to a problem or scoping out requirements for a new feature. A major difference in the day-to-day from my experiences in a traditional software engineering role is that I am frequently interfacing directly with our customers. We talk about what we can do to improve their experience as Candid customers, and then get to go execute on those opportunities. We work closely with our teammates on the Strategy and Operations team to understand customer requirements and devise solutions for our customer’s problems.”*

**What’s the coolest thing you’ve accomplished so far? Any notable customer outcomes you’d like to highlight?**

*“Our team supports the engineering efforts behind going live with new practices for our largest customers. This often involves enabling the integrations with their systems and third party vendors, developing features to support new workflows, and setting up custom configurations for new customers. Since starting 6 months ago, I have contributed to successful launches with 2 of the largest organizations on Candid. For both of these customers, my team was on-site to resolve issues in real-time and deploy updates based on the signal that we gather from observing users on Candid for the first time.”*

### What do you like most about your role?

*“I love that in my role no day is the same. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, I get to work on all parts of the app depending on what is most important to the customer. Additionally, we have the privilege of interfacing directly with our customers. Seeing the look on our customers' faces after resolving a pain point that they mentioned just a day before is priceless!”*

### What are some examples of skills that are important for your team/role?

*“The skills that are important on the Forward Deployed Engineering team differ slightly from a traditional software engineering role. Of course, a strong technical skillset is important when developing software, but there are some nuances in this role that require a unique skillset. We are often not provided with explicit product requirements, but rather a problem statement or a desired capability. The ability to translate that into requirements, implementation specifications, and a realistic timeline is crucial. The role also requires a lot of collaboration. Since we do not have ownership over a specific product domain, but rather customer outcomes, we are often contributing to products owned by other teams. Being able to learn about an unfamiliar system, ask good questions, and consider tradeoffs is key to success as a Forward Deployed Software Engineer.”*

----

### Pay Transparency

The estimated starting annual salary range for this position is $140,000 to $220,000 USD. The listed range is a guideline from Pave data, and the actual base salary may be modified based on factors including job-related skills, experience/qualifications, interview performance, market data, etc. Total compensation for this position may also include equity, sales incentives (for sales roles), and employee benefits. Given Candid Health’s funding and size, we heavily value the potential upside from equity in our compensation package. Further note that Candid Health has minimal hierarchy and titles, but has broad ranges of experience represented within roles.

#LI-AR1

[View posting at Candid Health](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/candidhealth/71365073-41fb-40a8-b23a-3e02306770a5/application)

## About Candid Health

Revenue cycle automation platform for healthcare providers that combines rules-based billing, APIs, analytics, and optional services to increase touchless claims, collections, and cash flow.

Series C · 200–500 people

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