> 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. # Choosing your next FDE role Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/paths/forward-deployed-engineer Decide your next FDE role by technical ownership, customer responsibility, project stage and next-level scope. **171** of **2,493** postings ask for forward deployed engineering · **123** companies · **129** with pay · median **$205,000** · middle half $175,000–$250,000 · read Nov 6, 2026 - Ask what happens after a customer says yes, because that is where two FDE roles stop resembling each other. - A role that ends at evaluation builds different experience from one that owns production incidents, and neither is automatically better. - "Senior" and "lead" mean different things by employer, so ask what changes at the next level instead. - Confirm the stage sequence and who owns each handoff before comparing pay. - Compare how postings split between individual contributor, technical lead and manager roles on the [management data](https://nextmove.md/fde/research/management). [Twenty](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/twenty) ### [Senior/Staff Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/18c2eb0f60fcfda6) Fort Meade, MD On-site New · 2d ago $192,000–$455,000 [monday.com](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/monday-com) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer ](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/864fb4ccff3c2067) Denver, CO Hybrid New · 4d ago $140,000–$170,000 [Capgemini](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/capgemini) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/a35ecfbfba75460a) Hartford, CT Hybrid 8d ago $85,000–$95,000 [NVIDIA](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/nvidia) ### [Senior Forward Deployed Engineer, Open Models](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/e29d3d2ea75f914e) US · city not listed 11d ago $184,000–$356,500 [jeffreym-consulting](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/jeffreym-consulting) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/99c63127d5fcd58e) Seattle, WA On-site 2w ago $150,000–$225,000 [RevStar](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/revstar) ### [Data & AI Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/c926f78a721d5698) AZ, DC, FL Remote 2w ago Pay not posted [Together AI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/together-ai) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer, Post-Training](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/3c12aeeb37e0d254) San Francisco, CA 2w ago $270,000–$300,000 · OTE [Uare.ai](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/uare-ai) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer (U.S. Government / IL5)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/b4730e997dcec701) San Francisco, CA · Los Altos, CA On-site 2w ago $130,000–$170,000 - [See all 171 →](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?background=forward-deployed-engineering) ## Start with the work after the demo Some teams build a reusable product and use FDEs to adapt it to real environments. Some deliver bespoke systems. Some roles spend most of their time in discovery and proof of concept. Others own production deployment and ongoing operations. A [Veeam senior forward deployed engineer role](https://careers.veeam.com/job/san-jose/senior-forward-deployed-engineer/22681/100820734912) emphasises technical delivery for complex enterprise accounts, hybrid-cloud architecture, integrations, automations and repeatable operational workflows, from production code through ongoing operations. That is a technical lead shape, which is a different job from a people manager even though both postings say "senior". ## Compare four things, in this order | What to compare | The question that settles it | | --- | --- | | Technical ownership | What will you build and maintain? Look for the coding work, deployment environments, data systems, testing and incident responsibility | | Customer responsibility | Who is the user of your work, and do you lead discovery, run enablement, support adoption, or own the relationship after launch? | | Project stage | How often do you work on pre-sales, proof of concept, implementation, delivery and operations, and who owns each handoff? | | Scope at the next level | Does progression add technical scope, account complexity, cross-team influence, or people management? | "Technical" can mean production code, configuration and integration, prototypes, or architecture advice. Ask which one the team expects most of. ## Six questions before you decide - Is the team building a reusable product or bespoke customer solutions? - Who decides delivery priorities when customer needs and product plans differ? - Who handles incidents and maintenance after deployment? - What share of recent projects reached production and ongoing operations? - What changes at the next level: technical scope, accounts, cross-team work, or people management? - What are the office, travel and customer-site expectations in practice? Once the responsibilities are clear, use [how to compare FDE offers](https://nextmove.md/fde/resources/compare-fde-offers) for pay, travel, location and written terms. Stated in the posting ## 145 of these 171 postings state a minimum number of years, most often 3–5 years. Share of those 145. How many years do postings asking for forward deployed engineering want? 0–2 years 11.7%, 3–5 years 49.0%, 6–9 years 35.2%, 10+ years 4.1%. - 0–2 years 17 postings · 11.7% - 3–5 years 71 postings · 49.0% - 6–9 years 51 postings · 35.2% - 10+ years 6 postings · 4.1% 26 postings state no number. Our reading of the posting ## 85 of these 171 postings build what the customer runs. What work do postings asking for forward deployed engineering describe? Builds what the customer runs 49.7%, Integrates and configures it 18.7%, Leads the deployment team 14.0%, Plans what the customer deploys first 7.6%, Proves it works before the sale 5.3%, Builds for teams inside the company 4.1%, Keeps customers running after launch 0.6%. - Builds what the customer runs 85 postings · 49.7% - Integrates and configures it 32 postings · 18.7% - Leads the deployment team 24 postings · 14.0% - Plans what the customer deploys first 13 postings · 7.6% - Proves it works before the sale 9 postings · 5.3% - Builds for teams inside the company 7 postings · 4.1% - Keeps customers running after launch 1 posting · 0.6% ## Frequently asked questions ### What do FDE and deployment jobs asking for forward deployed engineering experience pay? 129 of 171 postings state a pay range. The median is $205,000, and half of them sit between $175,000 and $250,000, from 89 companies. ### Which companies are hiring for FDE and deployment jobs asking for forward deployed engineering experience? These 171 postings come from 123 companies. The employers with the most postings are [Aircall](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/aircall) (7), [monday.com](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/monday-com) (6), [LangChain](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/langchain) (5), [Anthropic](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/anthropic) (4) and [NVIDIA](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/nvidia) (4). ### Are FDE and deployment jobs asking for forward deployed engineering experience remote? 42 postings allow remote work from the US. Another 65 are hybrid and 37 are on-site. The remaining 27 say nothing about arrangement. Travel is mentioned in 76 of the 171 postings. 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](https://nextmove.md/fde/method) ## Related reading - [Technical lead FDE jobs](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs-for/technical-lead) - [Engineering manager FDE jobs](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs-for/engineering-manager) - [How to compare FDE job offers](https://nextmove.md/fde/resources/compare-fde-offers) ## Guides for other backgrounds - [From software engineering to FDE](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths/backend-engineer) - [From solutions and customer engineering to FDE](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths/solutions-engineer) - [From implementation and data engineering to FDE](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths/implementation-data-engineer) - [From consulting to FDE](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths/consulting)