> 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 Robotics Engineer

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/8d9b4f103b1afb83

Medra posts a FDE role to build what the customer runs in San Francisco, CA, at $130,000–$210,000 base, below the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,864 postings with pay. Own end-to-end delivery of customer deployments for Medra’s Physical AI Scientist platform, translating scientific workflows into robot, instrument, and software integrations. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026.

- [Medra](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/medra)

Posted Oct 27, 2026 by Medra · open on Ashby as of Nov 8, 2026

**$130,000–$210,000** + equity San Francisco, CA On-site Full-time

Own end-to-end delivery of customer deployments for Medra’s Physical AI Scientist platform, translating scientific workflows into robot, instrument, and software integrations.

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F8d9b4f103b1afb83&placement=top)
- [View posting at Medra](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/medraai/bb4edbb0-f01a-4f58-be4e-f8749794a3d5/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

$130K–$210K Below the median

Midpoint $170K · median $190K

This job $130K to $210K. 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

Travel **Up to 30%**

- **Coding**: Writes production code

- **Builds for**: External customers

- **Level**: Senior

- **Role**: Technical lead

### Do you meet what the posting states?

The posting reads as a senior 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

- **Remote work restrictions**: 100% in-person at the San Francisco office

- **Employment type**: Full-time

- **Travel**: Up to 30%

- **Pay**:

## More like this

[Intrinsic](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/intrinsic)

### [Customer Success Engineer, Robotics Software and Automation](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/5e372b3dfdcb4c14)

Mountain View, CA 4mo ago

$132,000–$180,400

[Writer](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/writer)

### [AI deployment engineer (East)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/eabde487202a4488)

San Francisco, CA · Chicago, IL · +3 more Hybrid New · 4d ago

$146,000–$204,000

[PhysicsX](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/physicsx)

### [Machine Learning Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/57f18e0ae9d2cebe)

San Francisco, CA Hybrid 5mo ago

$150,000–$190,000

## The job description from Medra

Posted by Medra on Oct 27, 2026

**What We’re Building:**
We have been quietly building the foundational layers of our Physical AI Scientist platform:
🤖 Physical AI that can operate scientific instruments with human-level dexterity.
🧪 Scientific AI that can analyze results, reason about next steps, and close the loop autonomously.
This is an incredibly ambitious mission, but we believe that a team of ambitious people with high ownership can accomplish incredible things.

### The Team

- We’re a team of passionate, mission-driven engineers from companies like Tesla, Amazon, SpaceX, and Neuralink. We’re collaborative and love moving fast, both with our product and on team trips skiing or go-karting!
- As a team, we love nerding out about engineering and robotics — plus other topics like race cars or cooking. We like learning new things and then sharing our new knowledge with each other.
- Our team is opinionated and straightforward. We don’t mind intense discussions about design tradeoffs. If we have arguments or miscommunication, we resolve conflicts quickly and empathetically.

### In this role, you will

- Operate like the technical co-founder of a small startup within Medra, owning end-to-end delivery of high-impact customer projects and defining the roadmap to meet customers’ most critical scientific challenges
- Translate scientific workflows into technical requirements, support system architecture from conception to delivery, and develop interfaces between robots, instruments, and software
- Design, build, and test scientific workflows on our Physical AI Scientist platform, combining existing capabilities with new production software and instrument integrations
- Make implementation tradeoffs with robotics and software engineers, deciding where to reuse existing capabilities and where a customer requirement needs new engineering
- Integrate, test, and debug software solutions in simulation and on physical robots
- Work with forward deployed scientists through integration testing, water runs, customer-site bring-up, and scientific validation, resolving engineering blockers along the way
- Diagnose failures across software, instrument behavior, robotics, and customer infrastructure, and work with specialist engineers to resolve them
- Extend deployed systems to support new instruments, consumables, and workflows, rolling out releases with appropriate verification and clear operating guidance
- Bring deployment learnings back into the platform by generalizing integrations and sharing reusable tests, diagnostics, and tooling with other deployment teams
- Clearly explain technical decisions, limitations, and risks to customers and teammates
- Travel to customer sites approximately 30% of the time for hands-on deployment and support
- This position is 100% in-person, you must be able to come on-site to our San Francisco office. We do not offer hybrid roles at Medra. We do offer relocation benefits for applicants that need to relocate.

### Let’s talk if you have

- Strong software engineering fundamentals and experience shipping production code
- Demonstrated systems thinking: designing, implementing, testing, or debugging interfaces in a production system
- Experience delivering technical solutions with customers or users, from an ambiguous problem to a working solution in use
- A penchant for customer-facing engineering: you enjoy working directly with users, making technical decisions, and being accountable for the result
- A track record of learning unfamiliar technologies quickly and making sound decisions with incomplete information
- Clear written and verbal communication, including the ability to explain technical tradeoffs and surface problems early
- Interest in developing depth in robotics, automation, and physical AI, with a willingness to work directly with physical systems

### Bonus points if you have

- Experience shipping a product that combines software and hardware
- Forward deployed engineering experience, or another engineering role with direct responsibility for customer implementations
- Production code in Python, C++, or Rust
- Experience designing APIs, distributed systems, or software that coordinates external services and equipment
- Experience designing integration tests, reliability tests, observability, or deployment tooling
- Experience with robotics, laboratory automation, or biology

### What we offer

1. 401k
2. Medical insurance
3. Dental Insurance
4. Relocation benefits
5. Unlimited PTO
6. Weekday dinners

*Medra is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state, federal or local law or our other policies. We value diversity at Medra and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!*

[View posting at Medra](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/medraai/bb4edbb0-f01a-4f58-be4e-f8749794a3d5/application)

## About Medra

Medra builds Physical AI that operates lab instruments with human-level dexterity plus Scientific AI that reasons over results, automating biology experiments for drug discovery.

Series A · 10–50 people

## Similar jobs

[Generalist AI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/generalist-ai)

### [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/f13c7e99d08d7c7e)

San Mateo, CA On-site New · 3d ago

$150,000–$200,000

[Hive](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/hive)

### [Forward Deployed Software Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/d280fa23305a2516)

San Francisco, CA On-site 3w ago

$120,000–$200,000

[Applied Intuition](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/applied-intuition)

### [Forward Deployed Software Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/052b3216757ba0ba)

Sunnyvale, CA On-site 1mo ago

$130,000–$200,000

[C3.ai](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/c3-ai)

### [Data Scientist/Senior Data Scientist](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/7c6860d2bb7da38b)

Redwood City, CA On-site 2mo ago

$136,000–$183,000

[Monte Carlo](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/monte-carlo)

### [Applied Forward Deployed Engineer (Post-Sales)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/4593abbbddffbf3a)

US Remote New · Yesterday

$140,000–$180,000

- [Compare senior FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/senior)
- [Similar jobs in SF Bay Area](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?region=sf-bay-area)
- [Similar jobs that build what the customer runs](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?role=builds-for-customers)

Hiring at Medra and want this page changed or removed? Email info@nextmove.md and we take it down.

Employer postings · [How we read postings](https://nextmove.md/fde/method)