> 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.

# Member of Technical Staff - Forward Deployed Engineer

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/eb88eb3f3b97061e

Halluminate posts a FDE role to build what the customer runs in San Francisco, CA, at $215,000–$275,000 base, above the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,864 postings with pay. A customer-facing forward deployed engineer will work with frontier AI labs and enterprise customers to scope, prototype, and deliver custom RL environments and tooling. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026.

- [Halluminate](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/halluminate)

Posted Aug 17, 2026 by Halluminate · open on Ashby as of Nov 8, 2026

**$215,000–$275,000** San Francisco, CA On-site Full-time

A customer-facing forward deployed engineer will work with frontier AI labs and enterprise customers to scope, prototype, and deliver custom RL environments and tooling.

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2Feb88eb3f3b97061e&placement=top)
- [View posting at Halluminate](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/halluminate/e84fa450-13b8-4a09-809c-551c26fed8f2/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

$215K–$275K Above the median

Midpoint $245K · median $190K

This job $215K to $275K. 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
3. Implementation
4. Operations (not covered)

- **Coding**: Writes production code

- **Builds for**: External customers

- **Level**: Senior

- **Role**: Individual contributor

### What they ask for

Experience

- **2+ years** consulting or forward-deployed engineering roles for large enterprises with custom software, systems, and requirements

Background

- **Software engineering**
- **Forward deployed engineering**
- **Consulting**

Visa

- **Sponsors visas**

### Do you meet what the posting states?

The posting asks for 2+ 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**: On-site

- **Remote work restrictions**: San Francisco office, 5 days in office

- **Employment type**: Full-time

- **Visa sponsorship**: Available

- **Pay**:

## More like this

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### [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

## The job description from Halluminate

Posted by Halluminate on Aug 17, 2026

### About Halluminate

Halluminate is a data research lab building benchmarks and RL environments to push the frontier of AI in knowledge work.

Our first area of focus is economically valuable workflows in financial services and consulting, but we are rapidly expanding into adjacent verticals.

### The role

**Base:** $215–275k · **Equity:** 0.10–0.20% · **Location:** San Francisco, 5 days in office

Our FDEs will interface directly with our customers at AI Labs and Enterprises. You will sit in the customer research meetings, understand the intent behind the requests, and create software that drives forward $xMM projects. The work is a mix of client facing, 0 to 1, rapid prototyping, and product scaling with core platform teams. Your engineering will directly support revenue creation and frontier intelligence scaling.

### Responsibilities

- Work directly with frontier AI labs and enterprise customers to understand requirements and what they need from an RL environment
- Translate customer requirements into concrete technical specs our platform and project pods can build against.
- Build 0→1 — prototype, ship, and iterate on customer-specific environments and tooling before any of it becomes a platform feature.
- Use and extend our internal platforms and dev tooling rather than rebuilding them.
- Embed with SPL project pods to unblock delivery: integration, technical debugging, and the last-mile problems that decide whether a project lands.
- Feed patterns back to the platform team so one-off solutions become reusable capability.
- Own technical credibility in customer conversations, from scoping through delivery.

### You should have

- 2+ years of experience in consulting or forward-deployed engineering roles for large enterprises with custom software, systems, and requirements

- Strong engineering ability paired with genuine comfort interacting directly in front of customers
- A track record of 0→1 work: shipping something that did not exist, under ambiguity, without waiting for a spec.
- The ability to translate fuzzy customer language into technical requirements, and technical constraints back into plain terms.
- Startup speed: iterate quick, ask quick, respond quick, make mistakes quick.
- Experience building evals, environments, and benchmarks for AI Agents

### Nice to have

- Financial services domain exposure (investment banking, private equity, hedge funds).
- Former founders or experience at early-stage startups.

### What we offer

- **Healthcare** — Fully covered medical, dental, and vision for you. Subsidized for dependents.
- **Relocation** — $10k+ relocation stipend to help you get to San Francisco.
- **401(k)** — Up to 4% employer match.
- **Food** — Free breakfast, lunch, and dinner while working.
- **Health** — Free gym membership.
- **Transportation** — Free Ubers and Waymo rides to and from the office.
- **Visa sponsorship** — We sponsor visas, including H-1B.

[View posting at Halluminate](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/halluminate/e84fa450-13b8-4a09-809c-551c26fed8f2/application)

## About Halluminate

Builds simulated work environments, datasets, and benchmarks to train and evaluate AI agents on complex knowledge-work tasks, initially in financial services.

Series A · 1–10 people

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