> 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 (Founding Customer Engineer)

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/e87e2b23652d75c7

Clera posts a FDE role to integrate and configure the product in San Francisco, CA, at $140,000–$185,000 base, below the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,864 postings with pay. Founding customer-facing engineer at a seed-stage AI SaaS startup, owning customer relationships from onboarding through adoption while building the customer engineering function from scratch. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026.

- [Clera](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/clera)

Posted Jun 3, 2026 by Clera · open on Ashby as of Nov 8, 2026

**$140,000–$185,000** San Francisco, CA On-site Full-time

Founding customer-facing engineer at a seed-stage AI SaaS startup, owning customer relationships from onboarding through adoption while building the customer engineering function from scratch.

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2Fe87e2b23652d75c7&placement=top)
- [View posting at Clera](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Clera/351ba91b-8da5-48de-9f0f-6fd6dbd392bd/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

$140K–$185K Below the median

Midpoint $163K · median $190K

This job $140K to $185K. Senior FDE postings, 1,864 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $160K to $220K, median $190K.

### The work

Integrates and configures it

Balance **Mixed**

Project stages

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

- **Coding**: Configuration only

- **Builds for**: External customers

- **Level**: Senior

- **Role**: Individual contributor

### What they ask for

Experience

- **0+ years** customer-facing technical role in SaaS; stated range is 0–3 years

Background

- **Solutions and customer engineering**

Visa

- **No visa sponsorship**

### 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?

The posting says no visa sponsorship. Do you need one?

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**: On-site in San Francisco, California; remote and hybrid arrangements are unavailable.

- **Employment type**: Full-time

- **Visa sponsorship**: Not available

- **Pay**:

## More like this

[AKASA](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/akasa)

### [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/6b9e2488e7fb7a49)

San Francisco, CA Hybrid 3mo ago

$150,000–$170,000

[Noble Machines](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/noble-machines)

### [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/77d9339706f473d9)

Sunnyvale, CA On-site 1mo ago

$140,000–$195,000

[Instrumental](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/instrumental)

### [Forward Deployed Manufacturing Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/fb34b85a552cdce2)

Palo Alto, CA On-site 2mo ago

$140,000–$200,000

- [Other jobs at Clera (4)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/clera)

## The job description from Clera

Posted by Clera on Jun 3, 2026

### About the Role

This is a founding, first-non-founder hire at a seed-stage AI SaaS startup building conversational agents that run automated product demos for B2B go-to-market teams. You'll own every customer relationship and build the playbook for scaling from a small initial customer base to thousands. The role sits at the intersection of technical implementation, customer success, and product feedback — working directly with the CTO to shape what gets built.

### What You'll Do

- Own end-to-end customer relationships from onboarding through ongoing success, including improving demo performance and driving adoption
- Teach and coach AI agents on product positioning, buyer personas, pricing conversations, and sales workflows
- Serve as the voice of the customer — analyze conversation logs and feedback to identify patterns and surface insights for the product team
- Translate customer feedback into actionable product feature requests in close collaboration with engineering and the CTO
- Build automation workflows and systems (scripting, APIs, low-code/no-code tools) to help the customer engineering function scale efficiently
- Define and document the customer engineering playbook from scratch

### What We're Looking For

### Required

- 0–3 years of experience in a customer-facing technical role in SaaS (e.g., solutions engineer, customer engineer, technical account manager)
- Strong written and verbal communication skills; comfortable leading product demos and customer onboarding sessions
- Hands-on experience building automation workflows to scale customer-facing tasks (scripting, APIs, or low-code/no-code tools)
- Experience analyzing customer feedback and conversation logs to identify patterns and inform product decisions
- Ability to work cross-functionally and translate customer needs into concrete product improvements
- Experience coaching or configuring AI agents for sales contexts — defining tiers, personas, and pricing conversations is a plus

### Requirements & Eligibility

- Must be authorized to work in the United States without visa sponsorship
- Must be able to work on-site in San Francisco, CA

### Compensation & Benefits

- **Base salary:** $140,000 – $185,000 USD annually
- Early employee equity opportunity at a funded, early-stage AI startup

### Location

On-site in **San Francisco, CA**. Remote and hybrid arrangements are not available for this role.

[View posting at Clera](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Clera/351ba91b-8da5-48de-9f0f-6fd6dbd392bd/application)

## Similar jobs

[Metriport](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/metriport)

### [Senior Implementation Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/f6973ddff81ab382)

San Francisco, CA Hybrid 4w ago

$160,000–$190,000

[Thatch](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/thatch)

### [Partner Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/f0e7fcf68f87dedb)

Austin, TX · New York, NY · +1 more · US remote Remote 11d ago

$160,000–$195,000

[Liberate](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/liberate)

### [Senior AI Agent Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/6616645944655d3e)

Boston, MA · San Francisco, CA Hybrid 5mo ago

$120,000–$210,000

[Etched](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/etched)

### [Forward Deployed Systems Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/02421ed5d2a72ab8)

San Jose, CA On-site 11d ago

$150,000–$240,000

[AppLovin](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/applovin)

### [Partner Solutions Engineer ](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/650f0f85c1458b49)

Palo Alto, CA 5mo ago

$126,000–$188,000

- [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 integrate and configure the product](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?role=technical-delivery)

Hiring at Clera 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)