Data
Forward-Deployed Engineer Salary — 2026
Live figures from 941 active job postings. Updated daily from public ATS feeds.
Generated 2026-11-14 · 48% of postings have published salary
P25
$170,000
Median
$208,577
P75
$242,500
USD base salary · 431 roles with published salary · range $67,500–$375,000
Full salary breakdown by currency
| Currency | Median | P25 | P75 | Min | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USD | 208,577 | 170,000 | 242,500 | 67,500 | 431 |
| GBP | 110,000 | 80,000 | 160,000 | 75,000 | 9 |
| EUR | 125,000 | 62,500 | 150,000 | 62,500 | 6 |
| CAD | 190,625 | 110,000 | 210,146 | 110,000 | 6 |
What drives FDE compensation?
Company stage is the biggest lever. Earlier-stage startups compensate heavily in equity with a lower base; later-stage and public companies flip this ratio. An FDE at a Series A AI startup might take $160k base + 0.3% equity; the same level at a post-IPO company might be $220k base + a smaller RSU grant.
Seniority creates a wide spread. Senior and staff FDEs typically earn 30–60% more than mid-level peers. The title matters less than the actual scope — some companies use "Senior Software Engineer, Customer Deployment" for what is functionally a staff-level FDE role.
Location anchors the base range. San Francisco and New York command the highest absolute salaries. London and Berlin roles with comparable scope run roughly 30–50% lower in USD equivalent terms, though equity packages at European AI companies are closing the gap.
Vertical also matters. FDEs at AI/ML infrastructure companies (model platforms, data platforms) sit at the top of the range. FDEs at traditional enterprise SaaS companies tend to pay 10–20% below the AI-company benchmark.
Top companies by open FDE headcount
The companies with the most open FDE roles right now — a proxy for where compensation data is most abundant:
- 1. Databricks 54 open roles
- 2. Palantir 40 open roles
- 3. OpenAI 39 open roles
- 4. Rogo 19 open roles
- 5. Telnyx 17 open roles
- 6. Workday 13 open roles
- 7. Cohere 10 open roles
- 8. Scale AI 10 open roles
- 9. Cognition 9 open roles
- 10. Snowflake 9 open roles
Methodology
Salary figures are parsed from structured fields and free-text descriptions in job postings scraped daily from public ATS APIs. Only postings with an explicit salary range or value are included in calculations (48% of 941 active FDE roles as of 2026-11-14). Values represent base salary as stated in the posting — equity and bonus are excluded. Midpoint of a stated range is used for percentile calculations.
Browse 941 open FDE roles
Filter by remote, location, or company. Salary shown where published.