Forward Deployed Engineer at smallstep

About Forward Deployed Engineering at smallstep

Smallstep is an internationally distributed, remote\-first company. We work reasonable, flexible hours and utilize technology to accomplish goals asynchronously. We look for folks who are thoughtful, can break down problems, and often work independently. You are trusted to work on your own and to ask for help when blocked. At Smallstep you get the benefit of working with a tight\-knit team across many areas and contribute directly to the success of the organization. Security is a core responsibility for all employees at Smallstep. All roles are expected to strictly adhere to our security policies, procedures, and best practices to protect company assets, customer data, and systems. All employees must remain vigilant, report potential security concerns, and participate in ongoing security training to ensure compliance with industry standards.

Companies like smallstep typically structure FDE teams around a build-team model, where engineers join an existing customer engineering function and deploy the product across a portfolio of accounts. Based on FDE Pulse data across 208 active postings, 6% of FDE roles are build-team positions and 4% are "first hire" situations where the engineer defines the function. smallstep's 1 active posting falls into the first hire category based on role count.

FDE roles across the market are 2% North America-focused based on 208 active postings. 0% of FDE roles are classified as growth hires, meaning the company is expanding its customer base rather than backfilling an existing position. This context matters for FDE candidates evaluating smallstep: growth hire roles often come with more pressure to ramp quickly but also clearer performance metrics tied to customer success.

What FDEs Do at smallstep

Forward Deployed Engineers at smallstep own the technical success of customer deployments. This means designing integration architectures specific to each customer's infrastructure, writing and maintaining production code that runs in customer environments, and serving as the primary technical point of contact for enterprise accounts. The role sits at the intersection of product engineering and customer success without being either.

Day-to-day work for an FDE at smallstep varies by customer complexity and deployment stage. In the early phases of a new customer engagement, FDEs focus on environment setup, data mapping, and building the first integrations. As deployments mature, the work shifts toward performance tuning, expanding use cases, and training customer teams on new capabilities. Some FDE roles also feed product insights back to internal engineering, effectively acting as a bridge between customer needs and the roadmap.

Career Path for FDEs at smallstep

FDE careers typically progress along one of three paths: deepening technical specialization within the FDE function (moving from mid-level to senior to staff FDE), transitioning into engineering management (leading FDE teams or broader customer engineering organizations), or lateral moves into product management (where customer-facing FDE experience is highly valued). All three paths are available at companies with established FDE programs.

The FDE market median of $180,000 base salary across 134 active postings reflects a market that prices the role at a premium over equivalent-seniority software engineers at the same companies. Total compensation including equity, particularly at venture-backed companies, can be 20 to 50 percent higher than base salary. FDEs considering opportunities at smallstep should evaluate total compensation, not just base salary, when comparing offers.

Interview processes for FDE roles at most companies include a technical coding round, a system design round specific to customer deployment scenarios, and a customer scenario exercise where candidates are asked to scope a deployment, communicate trade-offs, and handle technical objections. Strong candidates combine engineering depth with the ability to explain complex systems to non-technical stakeholders clearly and without jargon.

Frequently Asked Questions