# Forward deployed engineer salary: $182,000–$250,208 a year

Every number below comes from 564 tracked live postings whose title matches "forward deployed engineer". No surveys, no self-reports — listed salaries only, in US dollars.

Measured September 2026 · n=221 US postings with salary.

## Findings

- The median forward deployed engineer posting offers $182,000–$250,208 a year (n=221).
- 38.1% of the 564 live postings matching "forward deployed engineer" are remote.
- Level 4 forward deployed engineers (building AI systems) list $185,000–$300,000, vs $180,900–$250,000 at Level 1.

## Median salary by seniority (USD / year)

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Intern | 0 | not enough data |
| Junior | 3 | $130,000–$176,700 |
| Mid-level | 23 | $160,000–$240,000 |
| Senior | 144 | $182,000–$250,208 |
| Lead | 18 | $192,600–$297,425 |

## Remote vs on-site (USD / year)

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Remote | 94 | $182,000–$256,500 |
| On-site / hybrid | 127 | $182,000–$250,208 |

## Companies hiring forward deployed engineers

- [Databricks](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/databricks) (100)
- [Palantir](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/palantir) (77)
- [Salesforce](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/salesforce) (63)
- [OpenAI](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/openai) (21)
- [ElevenLabs](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/elevenlabs) (18)
- [Scale AI](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/scale-ai) (18)
- [Cohere](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/cohere) (17)
- [Cresta](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/cresta) (10)

## Method

US-dollar postings whose title contains "forward deployed engineer", with both salary bounds listed. This page exists because 221 such postings clear the 50-posting floor Level requires before publishing a dedicated salary page — below that, the median moves too much between ingestion cycles to be a citable number.

Sample: postings at tech companies tracked by Level. Not the whole labor market — do not cite as a national average.

Refreshed automatically; this edition is measured September 2026. Small-n slices move a lot — read the n column first.

## Forward deployed engineer salary questions, answered from the data

**What is the median forward deployed engineer salary?**

Across 221 live US postings for forward deployed engineers with a listed USD salary, measured September 2026, the median offer is $182,000–$250,208 a year. This is the tracked catalog, not the whole labor market.

**How many forward deployed engineers jobs are remote?**

38.1% of the 221 live postings are marked remote by the employer, measured September 2026.

**Does the AI level of the job change the pay?**

In this sample, 108 postings are Level 4 (building AI systems) and 105 are Level 1 (AI is not the work). See the AI level breakdown below for the median in each band. Measured September 2026.

Source: https://jobsbylevel.com/salaries/role/forward-deployed-engineer