> 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. # Staff Forward Deployed AI Engineer Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/b144c00238ccf58c Cadre AI posts a staff FDE role to lead deployment teams in San Diego, CA, at $165,000–$200,000 base, below the staff+ FDE median of $225,000 across 388 postings with pay. Cadre AI is an AI strategy and integration firm building production AI systems for B2B clients in private equity, wholesale lending, real estate, and SaaS. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026. - [Cadre AI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/cadre-ai) Posted Jul 21, 2026 by Cadre AI · open on Gem as of Nov 8, 2026 **$165,000–$200,000** San Diego, CA Hybrid Full-time Cadre AI is an AI strategy and integration firm building production AI systems for B2B clients in private equity, wholesale lending, real estate, and SaaS. - [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2Fb144c00238ccf58c&placement=top) - [View posting at Cadre AI](https://jobs.gem.com/go-cadre/am9icG9zdDqjtBYWbvy-_EERjI1HRv4J) 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 $165K–$200K Below the median Midpoint $183K · median $225K This job $165K to $200K. 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**: Both - **Level**: Staff+ - **Role**: People manager ### What they ask for Experience - **8+ years** software engineering experience - **2+ years** building LLM-powered systems running in production Background - **Software 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 Diego, 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 Diego, CA - **Work arrangement**: Hybrid - **Remote work restrictions**: Based in San Diego, CA with reliable overlap with Colombia business hours. - **Employment type**: Full-time - **Pay**: ## More like this [Accenture](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/accenture) ### [Forward Deployed Engineering Manager](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/a60e7ba97aa7fff1) Arlington, VA · Milwaukee, WI · +39 more 6w ago $80,400–$316,300 [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 [Profound](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/profound) ### [Manager, Forward Deployed Marketing Engineers](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/5f8b796da97a1250) New York, NY · San Francisco, CA On-site 4w ago $183,000–$190,500 - [Other jobs at Cadre AI (1)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/cadre-ai) ## The job description from Cadre AI Posted by Cadre AI on Jul 21, 2026 ### Staff Forward Deployed AI Engineer San Diego, CA · Hybrid · Full-Time ### About Cadre AI Cadre AI is an AI strategy and integration firm that builds production AI systems for B2B companies in private equity, wholesale lending, real estate, and SaaS. We do not build decks about what AI could do. We ship systems that move revenue, compress costs, and automate the work that used to take entire teams. ### The Role As Staff AI Engineer, you are the technical leader and backbone of Cadre's San Diego engineering team. At this level, your job is no longer just what you build; it is making sure every engineer around you builds better. You mentor and manage engineers, set the standard for how the team designs, reviews, and ships AI systems, and own their growth as deliberately as you own your own code. You pair that leadership with serious technical depth. You stay hands-on with the hardest builds in our client portfolio: multi-step agent systems, complex document processing pipelines, and automations that touch core revenue operations. When a problem has ambiguous requirements or no obvious solution, the team looks to you, and clients measure the result in EBITDA impact, not demos. You report to the Head of Client Engineering, and you will occasionally join client calls to walk stakeholders through what we are building and why. You thrive here if leveling up the people around you energizes you as much as shipping the system yourself. ### What You'll Do You are on the forefront of the technology, reimagining how Cadre does AI and delivering the high-value solutions that set us apart with clients. ### Team Leadership and Mentorship - Manage and mentor two engineers on the San Diego team, owning their technical growth, code quality, and delivery. - Set the engineering bar through rigorous code review, pairing, and reference implementations the rest of the team builds on. - Serve as the first escalation point when engineers hit problems they cannot solve alone, teaching as you unblock. - Build the habits, patterns, and practices that make every engineer on the team measurably better quarter over quarter. ### Technical Direction - Drive architecture decisions across client builds: agentic workflows, RAG pipelines, document processing, and automation running in production. - Evaluate new models, frameworks, and techniques as they emerge, and decide what enters Cadre's production toolkit. - Turn hard-won lessons from client builds into reusable internal tooling, templates, and documentation that compound across engagements. ### Build and Ship Production AI Systems - Stay hands-on with Cadre's most complex client systems, owning delivery end to end from LLM orchestration and evaluation to data pipelines, APIs, and cloud infrastructure. - Make pragmatic build decisions under real constraints: client timelines, legacy systems, messy data, and measurable business outcomes on the line. - Ship fast without sacrificing reliability; design systems that keep working long after the engagement ends. ### Client Collaboration - Join client calls when the conversation needs technical depth, walking stakeholders through system designs, trade-offs, and progress. - Translate ambiguous business problems into concrete system designs and delivery plans clients can commit to. - Flag risks, trade-offs, and scope realities directly and early, protecting both the client outcome and the team's delivery. ### What You Need to Succeed - 8+ years of software engineering experience, including 2+ years building LLM-powered systems (RAG, agents, structured extraction) that run in production, not just prototypes or internal experiments. - Demonstrated technical leadership: engineers you have mentored or managed got measurably better because of your code review, pairing, and guidance, and you want direct reports as part of your role. - Expert-level Python and strong full-stack fundamentals, with the judgment to choose boring, reliable technology when the problem calls for it. - Production cloud experience (AWS, GCP, or Azure), including deploying, monitoring, and maintaining systems that clients depend on daily. - Deep working knowledge of the modern AI stack: prompt and context engineering, evaluation, embeddings, vector search, and agent orchestration frameworks. - A track record of owning ambiguous, high-stakes projects end to end, from problem framing through architecture, build, and post-launch iteration. - Fluent English and clear communication on client calls; you can explain an architecture decision to a non-technical executive without losing them. - Consulting-environment adaptability: comfort switching between client contexts, industries, and codebases without losing momentum. - Based in San Diego, CA with reliable overlap with Colombia business hours for client and team collaboration. - An AI-first working style: you use these tools daily to multiply your own output and teach the team to do the same. ### Why Cadre AI - **Real leadership. **You will be the technical backbone of a growing engineering team, with engineers who level up because of you and the autonomy to make the calls that matter. - **AI-native culture. **We do not just build AI for clients. We use it to run our own operations. You will work with people who are as obsessed with the tools as you are. - **Access to the frontier. **Through partnerships with Anthropic and OpenAI, you will be among the first to experiment with new models and capabilities. - **Upside. **We are bootstrapped, profitable, and growing fast. Early team members share in the success they help create. - **No bureaucracy. **Small teams. Clear accountability. The best idea wins, regardless of who says it. If you want your next five years to be measured in systems running in production, businesses that work differently because you shipped, and a team of engineers who are better because you led them, this is that role. ### Compensation The base pay range for this role is $165,000 – $200,000 per year. [View posting at Cadre AI](https://jobs.gem.com/go-cadre/am9icG9zdDqjtBYWbvy-_EERjI1HRv4J) ## About Cadre AI AI strategy and integration firm that builds production AI systems for B2B companies to grow revenue, compress costs, and automate work. Bootstrapped · 50–100 people ## Similar jobs [Janus Henderson](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/janus-henderson) ### [Principal Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/3721b3eb1718e859) Denver, CO Hybrid 4w ago $195,000–$225,000 [Citigroup](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/citigroup) ### [Forward Deployed Engineering Lead (SVP - Applied AI & Engineering)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/f9929ce0a6a659a9) Irving, TX 7w ago $156,160–$234,240 [Clarity Innovations](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/clarity-innovations) ### [Platform Engineering Senior Manager - Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/ed2eb21ca248737d) Annapolis Junction, MD 2w ago $145,900–$248,000 [Code and Theory](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/code-and-theory) ### [Director, Technology - Implementation (US)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/c162ecca06b6da70) New York, NY 4mo ago $150,000–$225,000 [Huron](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/huron) ### [AICC Senior Technical Lead, Forward Deployed Engineering (Senior Manager)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/7e288c85b9241b78) Chicago, IL Remote 4mo ago $165,000–$190,000 - [Compare staff+ FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/staff) - [Similar jobs in San Diego](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?region=san-diego) - [Similar jobs that lead deployment teams](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?role=leadership) Hiring at Cadre AI and want this page changed or removed? 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