> 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. # Head of Forward Deployed Engineering Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/37ce06f2fc048cbe Flow Engineering posts a FDE role to lead deployment teams in San Francisco, CA, at $240,000–$300,000 base, above the staff+ FDE median of $225,000 across 388 postings with pay. Leads and builds Flow's forward deployed engineering function, owning post-sale integrations, AI workflow deployments, adoption, and account expansion for aerospace, defense, automotive, and hardware customers. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026. - [Flow Engineering](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/flow-engineering) Posted Sep 23, 2026 by Flow Engineering · open on Ashby as of Nov 8, 2026 **$240,000–$300,000** + equity San Francisco, CA On-site Full-time Leads and builds Flow's forward deployed engineering function, owning post-sale integrations, AI workflow deployments, adoption, and account expansion for aerospace, defense, automotive, and hardware customers. - [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F37ce06f2fc048cbe&placement=top) - [View posting at Flow Engineering](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/flowengineering/b77281cd-bfd0-4885-82eb-8ed0cc75a0fa/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 $240K–$300K Above the median Midpoint $270K · median $225K This job $240K to $300K. Staff+ FDE postings, 388 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $197K to $262K, median $225K. ### The work Leads the deployment team Balance **Mixed** 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**: Staff+ - **Role**: People manager ### What they ask for Experience - **7+ years** forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, software engineering, or a technical customer-facing role - **2+ years** leading a team Background - **Software engineering** - **Solutions and customer engineering** - **Forward deployed engineering** ### Do you meet what the posting states? The posting asks for 2+ years. How many do you have? The posting reads as a staff-level 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 [Doppel](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/doppel) ### [Deployment Lead, FDE (SF)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/07021125b53721b9) San Francisco, CA 6w ago $250,000–$315,000 [Afresh](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/afresh) ### [Founding Senior Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/f7f6357b3d597caf) San Francisco, CA Hybrid 7w ago $203,745–$275,655 [Assort Health](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/assort-health) ### [Head of Forward Deployed Engineering](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/1243f2ee18b869b6) San Francisco, CA Hybrid 2mo ago $210,000–$300,000 - [Other jobs at Flow Engineering (2)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/flow-engineering) ## The job description from Flow Engineering Posted by Flow Engineering on Sep 23, 2026 ### About Flow Flow Engineering is an AI-native requirements platform for modern engineering organizations, enabling hardware teams to collaborate with AI agents to design, validate, and evolve complex systems with speed and rigor. ### About the role Flow is seeking a Head of Forward Deployed Engineering to lead the team that turns signed customers into deeply embedded, growing accounts. Our customers are systems and engineering leaders at aerospace, defense, automotive, and hardware companies, and the value they get from Flow depends on how well it connects to their existing tools and how quickly their teams adopt AI-driven workflows. You will own that outcome. This role sits at the intersection of engineering, product, and revenue. Sales engineers own the technical win before a deal closes. You and your team own everything after: integrating Flow into each customer's engineering stack, building AI workflows around their real processes, driving usage across teams, and expanding accounts into new programs, sites, and business units. ### What you'll do - Build and lead the forward deployed engineering function, including hiring, setting the operating model, and defining how the team works with sales, product, and engineering. - Own customer integrations end to end, connecting Flow to the PLM, ALM, CAD, simulation, and issue tracking tools our customers already rely on. - Design and deploy AI workflows tailored to each customer's requirements and systems engineering process, and turn the patterns that work into repeatable playbooks. - Own product growth and usage within accounts: track adoption, identify where teams are stuck, and drive Flow from a single team to broad use across an organization. - Own customer expansion, partnering with account executives to identify new programs, teams, and use cases, and building the technical case for growing each account. - Take clean handoffs from sales engineers on pilots and convert them into successful production deployments. - Feed what you learn in the field back to product and engineering, and influence the roadmap based on what customers actually need. - Stay hands-on: you will write code, build integrations, and sit with customer engineers when it matters. ### About you - 7+ years in forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, software engineering, or a technical customer-facing role, with 2+ years leading a team. - Strong technical foundation: you can build integrations, reason about APIs and data models, and understand how software fits into a complex engineering stack. - Hands-on experience building with LLMs or deploying AI-driven workflows in production for customers. - A track record of driving adoption and expanding accounts, not just delivering projects. - Comfortable operating across a customer organization, from individual engineers up to VPs and program leads. - Able to build a function from an early stage, balancing hands-on execution with setting structure for a growing team. - Comfortable in a fast-moving environment where the product, the customer base, and the team are all scaling quickly. ### Nice to have - Familiarity with requirements, systems engineering, PLM, or ALM tooling (Jama, DOORS, etc.) - Background in or working with defense, aerospace, or regulated hardware environments. - Experience with security and compliance requirements common in these industries (ITAR, CMMC, on-prem or restricted deployments). [View posting at Flow Engineering](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/flowengineering/b77281cd-bfd0-4885-82eb-8ed0cc75a0fa/application) ## Similar jobs [Ironsite](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/ironsite) ### [Head of Field Applications](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/2b1a0715b67f2087) San Francisco, CA On-site 2mo ago $200,000–$300,000 [Aircall](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/aircall) ### [Director, Forward Deployed Engineering & AI GTM](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/fc7f1d0479aa37c4) New York, NY · San Francisco, CA 3mo ago $200,000–$299,000 [Amazon (incl AWS)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/amazon-incl-aws) ### [Forward Deployed Engineering Manager, AWS Forward Deployed Engineering](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/54139ba3c218c1dc) East Palo Alto, CA · Irvine, CA · +4 more 10d ago $184,900–$287,700 [Datadog](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/datadog) ### [Forward Deployed Engineering Manager - Datadog for Startups](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/f370cd488dde1342) New York, NY · San Francisco, CA Hybrid 4mo ago $200,000–$250,000 [Distyl AI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/distyl-ai) ### [AI Engineer, Enterprise Lead](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/a777a2e143cc194d) San Francisco, CA · New York, NY Hybrid 4mo ago $200,000–$250,000 - [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 lead deployment teams](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?role=leadership) Hiring at Flow Engineering and want this page changed or removed? 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