> 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.

# Engineering Manager, Agent

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/7aa24228c9c7e778

Sierra posts a FDE role to lead deployment teams in New York, NY, at $280,000–$410,000 base, above the staff+ FDE median of $225,000 across 388 postings with pay. Engineering Manager, Agent will initially work hands-on as an IC before building and leading an engineering team responsible for production-grade AI agents. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026.

- [Sierra](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/sierra)

First seen Apr 22, 2026 · open on Ashby as of Nov 8, 2026

**$280,000–$410,000** + equity New York, NY On-site Full-time

Engineering Manager, Agent will initially work hands-on as an IC before building and leading an engineering team responsible for production-grade AI agents.

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F7aa24228c9c7e778&placement=top)
- [View posting at Sierra](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Sierra/2dee25a0-a0c1-425e-b67a-9d49fc821369/application)

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## At a glance

### Posted base pay

$280K–$410K Above the median

Midpoint $345K · median $225K

This job $280K to $410K. Staff+ FDE postings, 388 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $197K to $262K, median $225K.

### The work

Leads the deployment team

Project stages

1. Pre-sales (not covered)
2. Proof of concept
3. Implementation
4. Operations

- **Coding**: Writes production code

- **Builds for**: External customers

- **Level**: Staff+

- **Role**: People manager

### 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 New York, NY. 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**: New York, NY

- **Work arrangement**: On-site

- **Employment type**: Full-time

- **Pay**:

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East Palo Alto, CA · Irvine, CA · +4 more 10d ago

$184,900–$287,700

- [Other jobs at Sierra (17)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/sierra)

## The job description from Sierra

### About us

Sierra is the leading platform for customer-facing AI agents, working with many of the world's biggest brands — including The GAP, Rocket Mortgage, SoFi, Sutter Health, and SoftBank — to transform how they serve customers and grow their businesses. We are primarily an in-person company based in San Francisco, with growing offices across North America, Europe, and Asia.

We are guided by a set of values that are at the core of our actions and define our culture: Trust, Customer Obsession, Craftsmanship, Intensity, and a commitment to balancing Family along the way. These values are the foundation of our work, and we are committed to upholding them in everything we do.

Our co-founders are Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor. Bret currently serves as Board Chair of OpenAI. Previously, he was co-CEO of Salesforce (which had acquired the company he founded, Quip) and CTO of Facebook. Bret was also one of Google's earliest product managers and co-creator of Google Maps. Before founding Sierra, Clay spent 18 years at Google, where he most recently led Google Labs. Earlier, he started and led Google’s AR/VR effort, Project Starline, and Google Lens. Before that, Clay led the product and design teams for Google Workspace.

### What you’ll do

- **Lead the design and delivery of production-grade AI agents**: We believe the best managers lead from being hands-on and close to the work. Our managers operate as ICs for their first 3-6 months at Sierra, and then evolve to manage and grow a team of engineers, all while building highly performant, reliable, and intuitive AI agents that are central, mission-critical, and directly drive Sierra’s growth. These aren’t prototypes—they are powerful, scalable systems running in production environments across industries like finance, healthcare, and commerce. You’ll ensure technical excellence, operational reliability, and high customer impact.
- **Own the Agent Development Life Cycle (ADLC):** You’ll both build directly, and guide your team through the full lifecycle—from initial pilot through deployment and continuous iteration—coaching engineers to set and maintain the standard for ADLC best practices. You’ll ensure projects are delivered on time, meet customer needs, and scale effectively in production environments.
- **Partner with large enterprises and cutting-edge startups:** You’ll collaborate with leaders at some of the world’s largest enterprises to understand their most pressing business challenges, and guide your team in building AI agents that transform how they operate at scale. You’ll also work with innovative startups in Silicon Valley, embedding AI agents across their entire business stack to drive innovation and efficiency.
- **Shape the future of the platform:** Your team’s direct work with customers will guide the evolution of Sierra’s core platform. You’ll surface unmet needs, prioritize initiatives, and collaborate with research, product, and platform teams to shape the future of AI agent development and Sierra’s product.

### What you'll bring

- Experience building and scaling, as well as leading engineering teams that build and scale, end-to-end production systems
- Strong technical problem-solving skills and the ability to guide teams through ambiguous, fast-changing environments
- A leadership style that comes from being hands-on, and blends high standards with empathy, fostering both speed and quality
- Proven ability to work closely with customers and translate business needs into technical deliverables
- Excellent communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences
- Degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent professional experience.

### Even better...

- AI-related experience (experience developing AI agents a plus).
- Experience building or deploying AI/LLM systems in production
- Background as a founder, engineering lead, or startup builder with high ownership and urgency
- Familiarity with tools for today’s AI agents: eval frameworks, agent tooling, RAG pipelines, and prompt engineering
- Prior experience with React, TypeScript, and/or Go
- Experience interfacing with customers or leading technical projects with external stakeholders

### Our values

- **Trust: **We build trust with our customers with our accountability, empathy, quality, and responsiveness. We build trust in AI by making it more accessible, safe, and useful. We build trust with each other by showing up for each other professionally and personally, creating an environment that enables all of us to do our best work.
- **Customer Obsession: **We deeply understand our customers’ business goals and relentlessly focus on driving outcomes, not just technical milestones. Everyone at the company knows and spends time with our customers. When our customer is having an issue, we drop everything and fix it.
- **Craftsmanship: **We get the details right, from the words on the page to the system architecture. We have good taste. When we notice something isn’t right, we take the time to fix it. We are proud of the products we produce. We continuously self-reflect to continuously self-improve.
- **Intensity: **We know we don’t have the luxury of patience. We play to win. We care about our product being the best, and when it isn’t, we fix it. When we fail, we talk about it openly and without blame so we succeed the next time.
- **Family: **We know that balance and intensity are compatible, and we model it in our actions and processes. We are the best technology company for parents. We support and respect each other and celebrate each other’s personal and professional achievements.

### What we offer

We want our benefits to reflect our values and offer the following to full-time employees:

- Flexible (unlimited) paid time off
- Medical, dental, and vision benefits for you and your family
- Life insurance and disability benefits
- Retirement plan dependent on country of employment
- Parental leave
- Fertility and family building benefits through Carrot
- Lunch, as well as delicious snacks and coffee to keep you energized
- Discretionary benefit stipend giving people the ability to spend where it matters most
- Free alphorn lessons

These benefits are further detailed in Sierra's policies, may vary by region, and are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation or benefits plans. Eligible full-time employees can participate in Sierra's equity plans subject to the terms of the applicable plans and policies.

### Be you, with us

We're working to bring the transformative power of AI to every organization in the world. To do so, it is important to us that the diversity of our employees represents the diversity of our customers. We believe that our work and culture are better when we encourage, support, and respect different skills and experiences represented within our team. We encourage you to apply even if your experience doesn't precisely match the job description. We strive to evaluate all applicants consistently without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, pregnancy, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other legally protected class.

[View posting at Sierra](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Sierra/2dee25a0-a0c1-425e-b67a-9d49fc821369/application)

## About Sierra

Enterprise AI agent platform that helps large companies automate and improve customer journeys across support, sales, retention, and regulated workflows.

Late-stage private · 200–500 people

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