Startup FDE pay report: median base range is $175K–$225K, and candidates ask for $200K

Recruiting from Scratch published a compensation report on October 9 covering forward deployed engineer roles at US startups from seed to Series B. Across 75 postings that list pay, the median base range is $175K–$225K with a typical midpoint of $200K. Series A roles sit around $170K–$220K, Series B around $180K–$220K, and New York has a higher floor ($180K) than San Francisco ($160K), where ranges are wider and reach higher at the top.

The firm also looked at what 82 FDE candidates asked for over the past six months: a median of $200K, with the middle half asking for $175K–$225K. Six in ten were already interviewing elsewhere, so bands that top out at $200K start the conversation at the employer's ceiling.

Across 141 FDE job descriptions, 55% mention equity (but fewer than 1 in 25 give a percentage), 27% list a bonus and only 6% list commission. Just over half of the roles are onsite, 20% are remote, 38% mention travel, the median posting asks for 4 years of experience, and 74% mention LLMs, agents or generative AI.

For FDEs weighing startup offers, this is a useful benchmark: base pay is priced like engineering rather than sales, 43% of postings still hide pay, and equity terms are usually vague enough to be worth asking about directly.