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Forward Deployed Engineer Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

NinjaTech AI

Forward Deployed Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$80K - $120K/yr

That someone is the Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE). We attach an FDE to every large enterprise account. They embed with the customer, build the first high-value agentic workflows on our platform ...

Eudia

Forward Deployed Engineer

Palo Alto, CA · On-site

$160K - $200K/yr

Forward Deployed Engineer Eudia | Palo Alto, CA About Eudia Eudia is revolutionizing legal work through AI-powered Augmented Intelligence, empowering Fortune 500 legal teams to accelerate decision ...

Nuon

Forward Deployed Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$67.25 - $89.25/hr

Nuon is hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to own the operational success of our largest BYOC customers. You will work with the Founder, VP of Revenue, and Engineering to deploy, operate, and ...

Simular

Forward Deployed Engineer

Palo Alto, CA · On-site

Simular is a company focused on deploying AI agents in real-world environments, and they are seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to partner with early customers. The role involves translating ...

Bretton AI

Forward Deployed Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$150K - $200K/yr

The Role We are looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to work directly with customers to deploy and integrate Bretton's platform in real-world environments. This role sits at the intersection ...

Apple, Inc.

Forward Deployed Engineer

Cupertino, CA · On-site

Description We're looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) who thrives at the intersection of business and engineering - someone who can sit shoulder-to-shoulder with Sales teams, translate ...

Reactor

Forward Deployed Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

Forward Deployed Engineer Department: Engineering Employment Type: Full Time Location: San Francisco Description This role sits at the intersection of ML engineering and customer partnership. You ...

Hirevouch

Forward Deployed Engineer

Redwood City, CA · On-site +1

ABOUT THE ROLE As a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer, you'll deliver our voice AI solutions to enterprise clients, embedding with their teams to build production-ready systems. You'll bridge ...

Workato

Forward Deployed Engineer

Palo Alto, CA · On-site +1

Quartz ranked us the #1 best company for remote workers Responsibilities We are looking for an experienced Forward Deployed Engineer to join our Forward Deployed Engineering team.. In this role, you ...

Automat

Forward Deployed Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$145K - $200K/yr

The Role We're looking for a Forward-Deployed Engineer who is an outstanding engineer and a genuinely charismatic customer partner. This is an account-ownership, customer-facing engineering role: you ...

Apple

Forward Deployed Engineer

Cupertino, CA

$184K - $277K/yr

Description We're looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) who thrives at the intersection of business and engineering - someone who can sit shoulder-to-shoulder with Sales teams, translate ...

Shakudo

Principal Engineer

Menlo Park, CA

Experience in a forward deployed, professional services, solutions architecture, customer engineering, field engineering, or technical consulting role. * Experience delivering outcome-based customer ...

Mithrl

Forward Deployed Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

The Forward Deployed Engineer will work closely with customers to deploy and integrate the Mithrl platform in their private cloud environments, troubleshoot technical challenges, and ensure seamless ...

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All JobsForward Deployed Engineer JobsForward Deployed Engineer Jobs in California

Forward Deployed Engineer information

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How much do forward deployed engineer jobs pay per hour?

As of Aug 16, 2026, the average hourly pay for forward deployed engineer in California is $55.26, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $39.62 and $73.56 per hour, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What does a forward deployed engineer do?

A typical day for a Forward Deployed Engineer involves working closely with clients to understand their unique needs, designing and implementing software solutions, and troubleshooting issues as they arise. You'll spend time writing code, configuring systems, and sometimes traveling to client sites to provide on-the-ground support. Collaboration is frequent, as you'll interact with both internal product teams and client stakeholders to ensure solutions are effective and aligned with project goals. This role offers variety and the opportunity to solve challenging, real-world problems while directly impacting the client's success.

What skills and qualifications are needed to be a forward deployed engineer?

A Forward Deployed Engineer needs strong problem-solving abilities, expertise in software engineering, and the capacity to work directly with clients, often backed by a degree in computer science or a related field. Familiarity with programming languages (such as Python, Java, or C++), cloud platforms, and version control systems is commonly required, along with experience deploying technical solutions. Excellent communication, adaptability, and teamwork skills help these engineers excel when navigating client needs and collaborating with cross-functional teams. These capabilities are vital to delivering tailored solutions efficiently while ensuring successful client outcomes in demanding, real-world environments.

Is a forward deployed engineer a good job?

A forward deployed engineer is a technical role that involves working closely with clients to deploy and support software solutions, often requiring strong problem-solving and communication skills. The job can be rewarding for those interested in client interaction, real-world application of engineering skills, and working in dynamic environments, but it may also involve travel and high-pressure situations. Overall, it is considered a valuable position for individuals seeking hands-on technical experience and client-facing responsibilities.

What is a forward deployed engineer?

A Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) is a technical role that combines software engineering with customer-facing problem-solving. FDEs work closely with clients to deploy, customize, and optimize software solutions, often integrating complex systems into their workflows. They need strong coding skills, domain expertise, and the ability to translate business needs into technical solutions. The role typically involves travel, hands-on implementation, and collaboration with internal engineering teams to enhance products based on real-world use cases. It is ideal for those who enjoy both technical challenges and direct customer engagement.

What are the most commonly searched types of Forward Deployed Engineer jobs in California?

The most popular types of Forward Deployed Engineer jobs in California are:

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For Forward Deployed Engineer jobs in California, the most frequently searched job titles are:

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Cities in California with the most Forward Deployed Engineer job openings:

Forward Deployed Engineer jobs near you
Infographic showing various Forward Deployed Engineer job openings in California as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 71% Full Time, 22% Part Time, 2% Temporary, and 5% Contract. Highlights an 92% Physical, 3% Hybrid, and 5% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $114,938 per year, or $55.3 per hour.

Forward Deployed Engineer

NinjaTech AI

San Francisco, CA • On-site

$80K - $120K/yr

Full-time

Medical, Dental, Vision

Posted 23 days ago

Job description

Why NinjaTech AI
We are building the unmetered intelligence workforce: autonomous AI agents that do real, end-to-end work for enterprises instead of just answering questions. Since founding in 2022 we have gone from research to agents running production workloads inside real companies, on secure, isolated infrastructure, backed by SRI International, DCVC, and Candou Ventures. This is a small, senior team moving at startup speed on one of the most consequential problems in technology, and the Forward Deployed Engineer sits at the sharpest edge of it: your work lands in front of real customers in weeks, not quarters, and directly shapes how the world's most demanding enterprises adopt agentic AI. If you want the shortest possible line between what you build and the outcomes it creates, this is a rare seat.
Why this role exists
When we close a large enterprise deal, the contract is the start of the hard part, not the end. The customer has bought an outcome, an "unmetered intelligence workforce" doing real work inside their business, and someone has to make that outcome real, fast, inside their systems, their security constraints, and their messy data. That someone is the Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE). We attach an FDE to every large enterprise account. They embed with the customer, build the first high-value agentic workflows on our platform, and own technical success from kickoff through go-live and expansion. The FDE is how a signed contract becomes a renewed and expanded one.
What you'll own
  • Land the deployment. Embed with a newly-closed enterprise customer, rapidly learn their operations and data, and stand up the first production agent workflows on NinjaTech in weeks, not quarters.
  • Build custom, tailored solutions. Wire our platform into the customer's real systems (their data sources, identity, ticketing, CRMs, internal APIs) and build the bespoke automations, prompts, tools, and guardrails that make agents useful for their jobs-to-be-done.
  • Be the technical face of NinjaTech in the room. Run working sessions with everyone from the customer's frontline operators to their CISO and CTO. Translate their vision into an architecture, and translate our platform into their language.
  • Drive adoption and expansion. A deployment that isn't used doesn't renew. Instrument usage, hunt for the next high-value workflow, and turn a beachhead into an org-wide rollout. Your success metric is customer outcomes that drive net revenue retention.
  • Clear enterprise gauntlets. Own the technical side of security review, isolated-VM/data-residency requirements, SSO/SCIM, SOC 2 / DPA questionnaires,and procurement's technical due diligence.
  • Close the loop to Product. You see what breaks in the field first. Feed sharp, prioritized signal back to core engineering; occasionally upstream a fix or a reusable component so the next deployment is faster.

What we require
  • Engineering background. You're a genuine builder. Proficient in Python and at least one of TypeScript/JavaScript, Java, or Go; comfortable across data plumbing, APIs, and a bit of front-end when a demo needs it.
  • Genuine curiosity about agentic AI and LLM systems: prompt/tool design, evals, orchestration, guardrails, and the failure modes of agents in production. You don't need to have built them at scale, but you should be hungry to.
  • Data fluency. You can wrangle messy, large-scale, real-world data and reason about storage, pipelines, and cloud infrastructure.
  • Executive presence and operator empathy. You can hold a credible technical conversation with a CTO and sit with a frontline user to understand their actual workflow. You listen before you build.
  • Bias to ship. You move with speed and precision, iterate with users, and are energized (not frustrated) by evolving objectives.
  • Willingness to travel up to ~25% to customer sites, and to be onsite in the Bay Area with the core team.

What we value (nice-to-haves)
  • Experience integrating into regulated or security-sensitive enterprise environments (isolated VMs, on-prem/VPC, SOC 2, HIPAA, FedRAMP-adjacent).
  • Prior forward-deployed / solutions-engineering / delivery experience at an enterprise-software or infra company.
  • A track record of turning a first deployment into a much larger footprint.

Compensation & logistics
  • Base range $80K to $120K depending on level and experience, plus meaningful equity and a delivery/expansion-linked bonus.
  • Onsite in the Bay Area with the core team; ~25% travel to customer sites.
  • Full benefits (medical / dental / vision, etc.).

Equal opportunity
NinjaTech AI is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to building an inclusive environment for all employees. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment.

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