A one-day snapshot of 260 forward deployed roles finds 42% aren't engineering jobs

Nasser Ghanemzadeh pulled every live role with "forward deployed" or "FDE" in the title from the Ashby, Greenhouse and Lever boards of 144 AI and software companies on October 12, 2026. He found 382 postings, or 260 distinct roles, at 44 companies. Databricks (56 roles), Palantir (43) and OpenAI (30) account for half, followed by Rogo, Cohere, Scale AI, Cursor, Cresta and Snorkel AI. He has published the underlying data as a CSV.

Across 74 US engineering roles that post a range, the median base is $180,000 to $250,208, with a median midpoint of about $216,000. Ranges run from $90,000 at the bottom of a Palantir government role to $445,000 at the top of OpenAI's Forward Deployed Security Engineer posting. 57% of roles that state a travel figure allow 50% or more, and only about a third allow remote work in any location. London leads outside the US with 36 roles.

The most striking finding is how far the title has spread: 42% of the roles are not engineering jobs. Rogo hires forward deployed bankers, Eudia forward deployed lawyers, Cursor forward deployed strategists, and Scale AI and Cresta forward deployed product managers. Among engineering roles, Python (67%), agents (55%), TypeScript (54%) and evals (48%) are the most requested skills, and a quarter mention a security clearance, mostly at Palantir.

Why it matters: for engineers, the postings spell out a concrete skill list (agents and evals far more than fine-tuning) and a realistic picture of travel. Note the limits: it is a single day's snapshot, it misses companies on Workday and other systems, and three employers dominate the sample.