> 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.

# Product Engineer

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/f58ee38e240df145

Periodic Labs posts a FDE role to build for teams inside the company in Menlo Park, CA, at $250,000–$350,000 base, above the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,849 postings with pay. Product Engineer building the agentic software layer connecting frontier models, scientific data, lab systems, and materials scientists. Read from the employer’s posting on November 6, 2026.

- [Periodic Labs](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/periodic-labs)

Posted Nov 13, 2025 by Periodic Labs · open on Ashby as of Nov 6, 2026

**$250,000–$350,000** + equity Menlo Park, CA On-site Full-time

Product Engineer building the agentic software layer connecting frontier models, scientific data, lab systems, and materials scientists.

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2Ff58ee38e240df145&placement=top)
- [View posting at Periodic Labs](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/periodic-labs/d88a6590-a2fa-48c5-86bc-61612b5bb0bc/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

$250K–$350K Above the median

Midpoint $300K · median $190K

This job $250K to $350K. Senior FDE postings, 1,849 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $160K to $220K, median $190K.

### The work

Builds for teams inside the company

Balance **Mostly building**

Project stages

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

- **Coding**: Writes production code

- **Builds for**: Both

- **Level**: Senior

- **Role**: Individual contributor

### What they ask for

Experience

- **5+ years** overall professional experience

Visa

- **Sponsors visas**

### Do you meet what the posting states?

The posting asks for 5+ years. How many do you have?

The posting reads as a senior role. What level are you at now?

The job is in Menlo Park, 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**: Menlo Park, CA

- **Work arrangement**: On-site

- **Employment type**: Full-time

- **Visa sponsorship**: Available

- **Pay**:

## More like this

[Perplexity](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/perplexity)

### [Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Enterprise AI Products)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/a107ab6384fd73e5)

San Francisco, CA 4mo ago

$220,000–$405,000

[Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/jones-lang-lasalle-jll)

### [Forward Deploy Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/adb58e1e1a50fa0b)

Chicago, IL · San Francisco, CA Remote 3mo ago

$220,000–$320,000

[OpenAI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/openai)

### [Software Engineer, Safety Engineering](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/830735363503685c)

San Francisco, CA Hybrid 2mo ago

$207,000–$385,000

- [Other jobs at Periodic Labs (1)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/periodic-labs)

## The job description from Periodic Labs

Posted by Periodic Labs on Nov 13, 2025

### About Periodic Labs

We’re an AI and physical sciences company building state-of-the-art models to accelerate breakthroughs across materials, energy, and beyond. Backed by world-class investors and growing rapidly, we operate at the pace the frontier requires. Our team brings deep expertise, genuine ownership, and an insatiable drive to push the boundaries of what’s scientifically possible.

### About the Role

We’re hiring a product engineer to build the agentic software layer between our frontier models, our scientific data, our lab systems, and the scientists using them. You’ll build the environment where materials scientists work alongside AI agents to plan experiments, run analyses, coordinate workflows, and turn results into decisions. The right person for this role is excited to define what the working interface between scientists and AI should actually look like.

You’ll turn cutting-edge models into products that become part of real scientific workflows, both inside Periodic and in customer environments. That means designing interfaces, orchestrating tools and agents, integrating with lab and data systems, and building the feedback loops that improve both product behavior and model performance.

As one of our first product hires, you’ll help define product engineering at Periodic: technically deep, ambitious in scope, and tightly coupled to real scientific work.

### What You’ll Do

- Prototype quickly and ship continuously — build high-leverage products that become part of scientists’ daily workflow, then refine them through direct feedback from the lab and from customers
- Build agentic products and interfaces on top of our frontier models and scientific data, including copilots, experiment planning systems, workflow automation, operational tools, and new interaction patterns that go beyond chat
- Design how scientists direct, supervise, and collaborate with AI agents across experiment planning, execution, analysis, and decision-making
- Work closely with model researchers to shape product behavior, evaluation signals, telemetry, and feedback loops that improve both the product experience and the underlying models
- Own the product end to end, from data model and backend systems to APIs, user experience, deployment, and observability
- Spend time with scientists in the lab, understand where time and attention are being lost, and turn those bottlenecks into products before they are formally requested
- Help define the product engineering culture at Periodic, including standards for speed, quality, ambition, and taste

### Mechanics

**Minimum experience:** 5+ years
**Minimum education: **Bachelor’s degree or similar experience

**Location: **Menlo Park, CA

**Compensation:** $250,000-$350,000 base + equity

**Visa sponsorship: **Yes, we sponsor visas and will do everything we can to assist in this process.

[View posting at Periodic Labs](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/periodic-labs/d88a6590-a2fa-48c5-86bc-61612b5bb0bc/application)

## About Periodic Labs

AI scientists running autonomous robotic labs that synthesize and characterize materials, training models on real-world experimental feedback to accelerate discovery.

Seed · 50–100 people

## Similar jobs

[NVIDIA](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/nvidia)

### [Senior AI Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/c6b417fca88c2035)

Santa Clara, CA 11d ago

$224,000–$356,500

[Roku](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/roku)

### [Sr. AI Transformation Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/33d5909e360f7f5a)

San Jose, CA Hybrid 2mo ago

$242,200–$486,000

[Salesforce](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/salesforce)

### [Partner Technical Architect - Agentforce](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/0d3316c6c5777485)

Chicago, IL · New York, NY · +2 more 5mo ago

$172,500–$285,800

[Paradigm](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/paradigm)

### [Product Engineer, Applied AI](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/3b955e26ed9776cb)

San Francisco, CA On-site 3mo ago

$250,000–$400,000

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

### [Internal Acceleration, Engineer (Production)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/50520a6cf33f35c2)

San Jose, CA On-site 3w ago

$150,000–$400,000

- [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 for teams inside the company](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?role=internal-deployment)

Hiring at Periodic Labs 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)