> 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.

# Software Forward Deployed Engineer

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/61a297e82d4d9d61

CoLab Software posts a FDE role to build what the customer runs in Cincinnati, OH with no pay posted. A customer-embedded Software Forward Deployed Engineer who owns technically complex initiatives from discovery through production deployment for strategic customers. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026.

- [CoLab Software](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/colab-software)

Posted Oct 30, 2026 by CoLab Software · open on Greenhouse as of Nov 8, 2026

Pay not posted Cincinnati, OH On-site Full-time

A customer-embedded Software Forward Deployed Engineer who owns technically complex initiatives from discovery through production deployment for strategic customers.

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F61a297e82d4d9d61&placement=top)
- [View posting at CoLab Software](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/colabsoftware/jobs/5466847008)

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

Not posted

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 (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 Cincinnati, OH. 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**: Cincinnati, OH

- **Work arrangement**: On-site

- **Remote work restrictions**: On site with customers; based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

- **Employment type**: Full-time

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- [Other jobs at CoLab Software (2)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/colab-software)

## The job description from CoLab Software

Posted by CoLab Software on Oct 30, 2026

### About CoLab

At CoLab, we help mechanical engineering teams bring life-changing products to market years sooner.

We build AI for engineers designing cars, medical devices, and jet engines. Products this complex aren't sketched and sent to production. Teams spend months on iterations, reviews, and tests, predicting how every part performs before anything is built. CoLab is where those reviews happen, and we capture the rationale behind every change. Other tools show what changed between versions. Only CoLab knows why. That's how our AI helps manufacturers like Bobcat, Triumph Motorcycles, and GE Appliances make better decisions, eliminate rework cycles, and get to market faster.

Proudly based in St. John’s, Newfoundland, CoLab started with one customer in 2018. Since then we’ve raised a $72M Series C, been named the 57th fastest growing company in North America by Deloitte (Fast 500™), signed multi-year AI partnerships with companies like Bombardier, and grown to a team of 250+.

### About the Role

We’re hiring a Software Forward Deployed Engineer to embed within our strategic customers and deliver on high-impact, technically complex customer projects. This includes scoping, building, and deploying complex integrations, product features and AI product features that connect customer systems to CoLab, accelerate adoption and increase customer return on investment.

You’ll own delivery of key customer initiatives, working closely with our customer success, product, design and engineering teams, as well as leadership team stakeholders to remove blockers and deliver results.

Unlike a traditional software development role, FDEs must manage significant ambiguity, external team dynamics, and timeline pressure. If you like working directly with customers and shipping code to solve real, complex user problems with a high level agency and autonomy, then you will thrive in this role.

### What You’ll Do

- Own delivery of strategic customer projects, from technical discovery through to production deployment and success measures
- Build and deploy complex system integrations, backend services, and data pipelines
- Interface with enterprise systems, including data lakes, identity management and access controls solutions, and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions
- Stand up CoLab integrations and organize incoming data to enable use in features like AutoReview and Operator
- Collaborate directly with customers to understand needs, propose solutions, and guide adoption
- Develop targeted solutions that meet the specific Customer's requirements whilst ensuring solutions are designed and developed with our broader customer base in mind.
- Bring your extensive knowledge of our Customer's requirements back to the development team for learning.

### Our Ideal Candidate

- You're based in Cincinnati and are comfortable working on site with our customers
- You’ve delivered complex technical solutions for projects where requirements were not clearly defined
- You write clean, production-grade code in a variety of languages and consider yourself language agnostic
- You’re comfortable working in unfamiliar environments - both technically and organizationally
- You’ve worked with enterprise systems (e.g., data lakes, IdP, PLM, ERP, etc)
- You can break down ambiguity, sequence work, and adjust scope without losing momentum
- You’re confident leading deeply technical conversations with customer engineering or IT teams
- You care about delivering outcomes, not just writing code
- You have a “go figure it out” mindset and can roll with the punches when things shift

### Bonus Experience

- Prior work embedding within customer environments as part of enterprise SaaS deployments
- Experience building or integrating AI-powered features
- Familiarity with manufacturing or engineering data, processes, or systems
- Experience with API-first products or developer platforms

### Extra Details

- This is a full-time, permanent position with a competitive compensation package that includes, base salary and stock options
- Includes extended health benefits, unlimited vacation, and 401k matching
- This is and on site role based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

### Equity Note

Frequently cited statistics show that people who identify with historically marginalized groups are likely to apply to jobs only if they meet 100% of the qualifications. We encourage you to help us break that statistic and apply even if you don’t meet every single qualification - your potential is what matters most to us.

[View posting at CoLab Software](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/colabsoftware/jobs/5466847008)

## About CoLab Software

AI-powered EngineeringOS for mechanical and hardware teams that captures design-review knowledge and uses agents to flag issues before release.

Series C · 100–200 people

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Pay not posted

- [Compare senior FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/senior)
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