Role Description
Location Remote, US (East Coast preferred, NYC/DC ideal). Occasional onsites
Compensation $140K - $180K base + ~0.2% equity
Work authorization US citizenship required (must be eligible for a security clearance)
What you bring
- US citizen able to obtain and hold a security clearance
- 2+ years of software engineering experience
- Deep professional TypeScript experience
- Systems design experience with infrastructure (Kubernetes, Postgres)
- Track record of shipping product to customers
- Strong client-facing skills: running demos, winning champions and owning customer relationships
Nice to have
- Senior or staff-level IC experience at reputable tech companies
- Founder or builder who has shipped on a similar stack (TypeScript, Kubernetes, agentic systems)
- Government, defense or compliant environments (GovCloud, FedRAMP, OSCAL)
Pay: $140,000.00 - $180,000.00 per year
Work Location: Remote
About Forward Deployed Engineering
Forward Deployed Engineers are embedded directly with customers to build custom solutions, integrate products into existing infrastructure, and bridge the gap between product engineering and customer success. The role combines deep technical skills with the ability to operate in client environments and translate business requirements into working software.
Originally pioneered by Palantir, the FDE model has spread across AI, enterprise SaaS, and cloud infrastructure companies. FDEs write production code, architect integrations, train customer teams, and feed product insights back to the core engineering organization. At companies like OpenAI, Salesforce, and Databricks, FDE teams are treated as elite engineering units that can ship custom solutions in days rather than quarters.
Typical FDE stack: Python, TypeScript, SQL, REST/GraphQL APIs, cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure), and increasingly LLM APIs and AI orchestration frameworks. Strong communication and the ability to context-switch between technical and business conversations are as important as coding ability.
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