> 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 Engineer Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/9d5934309cf265c1 Guild.ai posts a FDE role to build what the customer runs in San Francisco, CA, at $180,000–$300,000 base, above the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,864 postings with pay. This customer-facing sales engineering role leads technical engagements end-to-end, from mapping customer workflows and designing integrations to building and deploying production-ready AI agent solutions. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026. - [Guild.ai](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/guild-ai) Posted Sep 24, 2026 by Guild.ai · open on Ashby as of Nov 8, 2026 **$180,000–$300,000** + equity San Francisco, CA Hybrid Full-time This customer-facing sales engineering role leads technical engagements end-to-end, from mapping customer workflows and designing integrations to building and deploying production-ready AI agent solutions. - [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F9d5934309cf265c1&placement=top) - [View posting at Guild.ai](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/guild/41702828-017c-4a2d-8b50-539cbe5a1e52/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 $180K–$300K Above the median Midpoint $240K · median $190K This job $180K to $300K. 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 2. Proof of concept 3. Implementation 4. Operations (not covered) Travel **Up to 30%** - **Coding**: Writes production code - **Builds for**: External customers - **Level**: Senior - **Role**: Technical lead ### What they ask for Experience - **3+ years** Technical pre-sales experience - **3+ years** Software engineering experience Background - **Software engineering** - **Solutions and customer engineering** ### Do you meet what the posting states? The posting asks for 3+ 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? 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**: Hybrid - **Remote work restrictions**: San Francisco Bay Area preferred; open to other locations. - **Employment type**: Full-time - **Travel**: Up to 30% - **Pay**: ## More like this [Accenture](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/accenture) ### [AI Forward Deployed Engineering Senior Manager | Sales ReInvention](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/16bca3048d7b55d6) Chicago, IL · Milwaukee, WI · +41 more 6w ago $112,900–$366,300 [Fireworks AI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/fireworks-ai) ### [AI Field Engineer - Enterprise](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/546672abcb710ae7) San Mateo, CA Hybrid 5mo ago $200,000–$260,000 [Scale AI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/scale-ai) ### [Senior Frontier Agents Engineer (Forward Deployed Engineering)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/67b7c374d76c71b3) San Francisco, CA · New York, NY · +1 more 5mo ago $216,000–$270,000 ## The job description from Guild.ai Posted by Guild.ai on Sep 24, 2026 ### About Us Guild is the control plane for AI agents - a platform to build, deploy, govern, and share agents in production. As AI moves from experimentation to real systems, we're building the infrastructure layer that makes it safe, observable, and scalable. ### About the Role We are building the control plane for AI agents in teams and companies. As a **Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)**, you are the technical bridge between our platform and our customers' most complex workflows. This is a high-impact sales engineering role embedded in a customer-facing context. You won't just demo the product; you will get deep into customer environments, understand their underlying systems, and ship production-ready agentic solutions. You will collaborate closely with sales to prove value and with product engineering to ensure the insights you gather in the field shape the future of our infrastructure. We are looking for someone who is energized by customer partnership and thrives on seeing their code solve tangible business problems in the wild. ### What You’ll Own You will lead the technical side of customer engagements end-to-end: 1. **Solution Design & Implementation** - Discovery: Partner with customers to map business processes to agent-based solutions. - Architecture: Design and build integration architectures that connect our platform to customer tools (e.g., Slack, GitHub, Salesforce, internal APIs). - Deployment: Implement custom workflows and agent behaviors using modern LLM frameworks (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.). 2. **Full-Stack Engineering** - Custom Tooling: Build supporting services, scripts, and interfaces to deliver seamless customer solutions. - Technical Breadth: Work across the stack (Python, TypeScript, React) as the situation demands. - Cloud Operations: Operate comfortably within cloud-native environments (GCP, AWS, Kubernetes). 3. **Product Influence & Feedback Loop** - Insights: Translate field learnings into concrete product requirements and platform features. - Scalability: Identify patterns across engagements to build reusable templates and integration libraries. - Collaboration: Work alongside the core engineering team to close the loop between customer needs and the platform roadmap. 4. **Strategic Sales Partnership** - Technical Authority: Support sales with deep technical expertise, including architecture reviews and proof-of-concept builds. - Trust Building: Act as a trusted advisor to customer engineering and IT teams. ### What We’re Looking For We recognize that "Forward Deployed" is a unique profile. You might be a software engineer who loves the "why" behind the code and wants to be closer to the user, or a highly technical product manager or solutions engineer who prefers working closely with customers day-to-day. ### Core Requirements - **Sales Engineering Acumen:** 3+ years of technical pre-sales experience partnering with sales teams to position complex technical products and drive customer deals to closure. - **Engineering Foundation:** 3+ years of experience in software engineering, with a focus on full-stack development (Python, TypeScript) preferred but not required. - **Integrations Expert:** Deep comfort working with third-party APIs, authentication protocols, and enterprise systems. - **Problem Solver:** Ability to navigate ambiguous requirements and translate complex business needs into clean, maintainable technical solutions. - **Communicator:** You can explain complex infrastructure to non-technical stakeholders while maintaining high technical credibility with developers. - **Resourcefulness:** A "figure it out" mindset—you are comfortable shipping solutions in fast-paced, early-stage environments. **Location**: San Francisco Bay Area preferred (Hybrid/In-person) but open to other locations. **Type**: Full-time **Travel**: Occasional travel to customer sites (up to 25-30%) may be required to deepen partnerships and lead on-site implementations. ### Bonus Points - Experience building with LLM APIs or agentic frameworks. - Background in developer tools, infrastructure, or enterprise SaaS. - Familiarity with Kubernetes and cloud-native scaling. ### Who Thrives Here - **Builders** who are energized—not drained—by direct customer interaction. - **Engineers** who want to see their work land and solve tangible problems. - **Generalists** who enjoy context-switching between a deep-dive architectural session and a strategic customer call. ### Why This Role? You’ll be the person who makes AI agents work for the world’s most innovative teams. You won't just be handing off requirements; you'll be building the future of work, one deployment at a time. [View posting at Guild.ai](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/guild/41702828-017c-4a2d-8b50-539cbe5a1e52/application) ## About Guild.ai Guild.ai provides a vendor-neutral control plane for building, deploying, governing, observing, and sharing AI agents in production. Series A · 10–50 people ## Similar jobs [Salesforce](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/salesforce) ### [Lead Software Engineer, AI Labs (Product and Customer Facing)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/2d1c287890786103) San Francisco, CA · Washington, DC · +1 more 2w ago $148,500–$344,700 [Amazon (incl AWS)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/amazon-incl-aws) ### [Sr Forward Deployed Engineer, Forward Deployment Engineering](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/799ec8c403091b46) East Palo Alto, CA · Boston, MA · +3 more 2w ago $168,100–$261,500 [Zip](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/zip) ### [Software Engineer, Forward Deployed (Mid - Senior Level)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/db3d12a17ae46903) San Francisco, CA Hybrid 7w ago $150,000–$250,000 [Databricks](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/databricks) ### [Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - Digital Native Business ](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/d7d1858268bd328d) San Francisco, CA 7w ago $182,000–$250,208 [Simple AI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/simple-ai) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/048b7691c8a2aa85) San Francisco, CA On-site 2w ago $120,000–$200,000 - [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 Guild.ai and want this page changed or removed? 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