What Is a Forward Deployed Engineer?
How customer-facing engineering can combine discovery, software delivery and feedback to the product team. Roles differ across employers.
Understand the role →FDE Career Guide
Understand the Forward Deployed Engineer role.
A practical starting point for engineers exploring customer delivery work, public salary disclosures, and the components of a compensation offer.
From a customer problem to production
Build where the work happens.
Understand the workflow.
Scope a useful solution.
Ship and learn with the customer.
Two places to start
Get the role. Read the offer.
FDE Salary Guide
Two US salary disclosures and one separate UK case, with original sources, dates and pay definitions. Compare two USD offers in your browser.
Read salary disclosures →Engineering with the customer
What the work can involve
Official role descriptions connect customer problem-solving with building and deploying software. Depending on the employer, that may mean a tailored data application or a production AI workflow. The title alone does not tell you the team, travel requirements or scope of responsibility.
Compared with an engineering role focused on a shared product roadmap, an FDE role can put more emphasis on customer discovery and deployment in a specific environment. Both involve software engineering; the responsibilities can overlap.
Based on the Palantir role description and OpenAI role description, checked Oct 10, 2026. See the career guide for context.