$207,000–$300,000
From software engineering to FDE
1,684 of 2,486 postings ask for software engineering · 805 companies · 1,280 state pay: median $200,000, half $168,000–$230,000
Postings read on
Published · Updated
Stated in the posting
1,337 of these 1,684 postings state a minimum number of years, most often 3–5 years.
Share of those 1,337.
10.4%52.1%29.7%
- 0–2 years139 postings · 10.4%
- 3–5 years697 postings · 52.1%
- 6–9 years397 postings · 29.7%
- 10+ years104 postings · 7.8%
347 postings state no number.
The minimum number of years each posting states. A posting that gives no number is not a posting that wants none.
Our reading of the posting
1,040 of these 1,684 postings build what the customer runs.
61.8%21.1%9.8%
- Builds what the customer runs1,040 postings · 61.8%
- Builds for teams inside the company355 postings · 21.1%
- Integrates and configures it165 postings · 9.8%
- Leads the deployment team74 postings · 4.4%
- Plans what the customer deploys first29 postings · 1.7%
- Proves it works before the sale17 postings · 1.0%
- Keeps customers running after launch4 postings · 0.2%
What an employer asks you to arrive with and what the job turns out to be are two readings of one posting, and they disagree constantly. The guide below is about the first. This bar is the second.
$176,100–$308,200
$195,000–$225,000
$150,000–$275,000
$114,000–$192,000
Senior Consultant CPM (Forward Deployed Engineer)
Atlanta, GA · Chicago, IL · +1 moreAtlanta, GA +2Hybrid
$95,000–$140,000
$140,000–$170,000
$185,000–$215,000
$180,000–$240,000
Pay not posted
$150,000–$180,000
Senior Forward Deployed Engineer, AWS Forward Deployed Engineering
East Palo Alto, CA · Boston, MA · +3 moreEast Palo Alto, CA +4
$168,100–$261,500
Pay not posted
Pay not posted
Senior Software Engineer – AI, Tax and Audit, FDE
Brooklyn, NY · Frisco, TX · +2 moreBrooklyn, NY +3Hybrid
$118,400–$253,000
Showing 15 of 1,684 matching postings. Open the full search and adjust filters →
- Your depth is the reason FDE teams hire software engineers, because the work lands in an environment nobody controls.
- The gap is distance from the person who asked, so practise agreeing the problem and the acceptance check.
- Expect to work across more layers than your service boundary: cloud deployment, identity, data quality, sometimes model evaluation.
- Do not claim AI experience you have not shipped, because not every FDE role requires it.
- Check whether your target postings describe production code or configuration work on the coding data.
What carries over
The strongest evidence is a service or workflow people depended on:
- an API or service you designed and operated
- a data model or pipeline supporting a customer or internal workflow
- an integration across systems with different schemas, permissions or failure modes
- an incident where you found the cause, restored service, and changed the system or the runbook
- a release where you added observability, tests, rollout controls or documentation
Customers have unusual data sources, restricted networks, and workflows that cannot change quickly. The question is not which framework you have used. It is whether you can make a sound technical decision, explain it to the people who use the system, and maintain the result.
A practical preparation plan
Start with one project you can explain end to end. Write down the original request, the users and systems involved, the design choices, the release path, and what happened after launch. Mark which parts you built and which other teams handled.
Rehearse the customer conversation. Explain a technical trade-off in terms of the workflow it protects. Where the requirement is unclear, give the next question you would ask rather than pretending the ambiguity is resolved.
Then close one visible gap from the postings you are considering: cloud deployment, a second language, SQL, Kubernetes, observability, or a customer-facing delivery example. A small deployed service with tests and an operational note is better evidence than a list of courses.
Five questions for the team
- Is the role mainly integrations, application development, deployment or model evaluation?
- What must a new engineer be able to do in production on the first day?
- Who owns the customer requirement when it conflicts with the reusable product?
- Who handles incidents and long-term maintenance after delivery?
- How much travel and customer time should an individual contributor expect?
Frequently asked questions
What do FDE and deployment jobs asking for software engineering experience pay?
1,280 of 1,684 postings state a pay range. The median is $200,000, and half of them sit between $168,000 and $230,000, from 562 companies.
Which companies are hiring for FDE and deployment jobs asking for software engineering experience?
These 1,684 postings come from 805 companies. The employers with the most postings are Databricks (64), Deloitte US (64), Amazon (incl AWS) (49), OpenAI (31) and Accenture (30).
Are FDE and deployment jobs asking for software engineering experience remote?
366 postings allow remote work from the US. Another 400 are hybrid and 321 are on-site. The remaining 597 say nothing about arrangement. Travel is mentioned in 729 of the 1,684 postings.
Counted over the 1,684 postings in this search. Postings read on November 5, 2026. These are the postings Nextmove tracks today, not a market survey.
Employer postings · Counted over the postings that state what experience they want. A posting that states none, or that asks for experience outside the five we list, is in none of them. · How we read postings