Anthropic files a pre-sales architect in the same department as its forward deployed engineers. Source 1Job Application for Applied AI Architect, Commercial at AnthropicPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job postingSource 2Enterprise Account Executive, IndustriesPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job postingSource 3Forward Deployed EngineerPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting Cloudflare’s Customer Engineer is a “quota-carrying technologist”. Source 4Customer Engineer, KoreaPublisherCloudflare (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting Notion files a posting under Sales. Source 5Forward Deployed Engineer, GTM, AMER @ NotionPublisherNotion (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job posting Four jobs share one vocabulary, and the title is the weakest evidence on the page. By the end you can run four tests on any customer-facing posting and say in one sentence which job it is, why, and what to ask the recruiter.

Why the labels blur

Read the posting, not the title; employers split customer work differently. At OpenAI, Colin Jarvis said on a South Park Commons panel in May 2026 that solutions engineering (pre-sales) and solutions architecture (post-sales) serve the “scale motion”, while the FDE unit is a separate business unit that works only about 10 engagements at a time. Source 6The Future of Forward Deployed Engineering | OpenAI, Ramp, Nominal, DatalandPublisherSouth Park Commons (YouTube)Source typerecorded talk or interview

Check four things, in order:

TestLine to findFDESA or SESWE
CodeWhat’s built, and where it runsProduction code in the customer’s systemsPrototypes, demos, proofs of conceptProduct code for every customer
TimingWhat it owns after signingA running system, sometimes with on-callThe account or the planThe product, not an account
PayPay basis, and what drives any variableBase, or OTE not tied to bookingsCommission, quota, or OTE tied to bookingsBase salary, no account-tied variable
OrgDepartment or teamAn FDE-named unit or engineeringSales, go-to-market, field engineeringProduct engineering

Code decides the family; timing, pay and org show which way a hybrid leans. When code says FDE and pay says quota, treat it as a sales role that writes code until the recruiter tells you otherwise. Write the result as a sentence, not a label: “FDE work, pre- and post-sale, measured on renewals, in the Sales department”.

To split SA from SE, ask what the role is tied to. A sales engineer is tied to a deal: Twilio’s Principal Presales Engineer is “a critical part of the sales team” and can earn commissions. Source 7Principal Presales EngineerPublisherTwilio (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting A solutions architect is tied to the customer’s architecture, and can span the sale: Vercel’s spans pre- and post-sales and owns proofs of concept and pilots. Source 8Solutions ArchitectPublisherVercel (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting

Production code versus proofs of concept

Start with code: write down the verb and its object. FDE postings describe code that ships and keeps running. OpenAI’s San Francisco FDE posting says “own discovery, technical scoping, system design, build, and production rollout”, and asks for people who “write and review production-grade code”. Source 9Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - SFPublisherOpenAI (Ashby)Source typecompany job posting

The adjacent roles write a different kind of code, or none. The Pragmatic Engineer reported, in August 2025, that OpenAI’s FDEs write code directly on customer infrastructure, while its SAs rarely do and usually build proofs of concept on anonymized or offline cuts of data. Source 10What are Forward Deployed Engineers, and why are they so in demand? (Gergely Orosz)PublisherThe Pragmatic EngineerSource typenews report “Prototype”, “demo” and “guide implementation” are SA or SE verbs.

Production code does not separate an FDE from a software engineer; how many customers the code serves does. Palantir contrasts a Dev’s “one capability, many customers” with a Delta’s “one customer, many capabilities”. Source 11Dev versus Delta: Demystifying engineering roles at PalantirPublisherPalantir BlogSource typecompany blogSource 12A Day in the Life of a Palantir Forward Deployed Software EngineerPublisherPalantir BlogSource typecompany blog In our reading, an FDE who only builds one-offs is doing contract work; noticing that several customers need the same connector, and getting it into the product, is the job. The label also changes the loop: Palantir’s early-talent careers page says the interview process varies between Forward-Deployed Software Engineer and Software Engineer. Source 13Palantir Careers | Students and Early TalentPublisherPalantir TechnologiesSource typecompany hiring page

At Databricks, and at some AI application companies, the role next door is professional services. Databricks announced, in June 2026, an FDE organization that brings its Professional Services organization under one roof. Source 14Forward Deployed Engineering: Delivering Business Outcomes with AI (Jason Martin)PublisherDatabricks BlogSource typecompany blog In a June 2025 Andreessen Horowitz analysis, Joe Schmidt wrote that at complex AI application companies the implementation role is sometimes a professional services employee “rebranded as a forward deployed engineer”. Source 15Trading Margin for Moat: Why the Forward Deployed Engineer Is the Hottest Job in StartupsPublisherAndreessen HorowitzSource typeindependent analysis The code and timing tests tell them apart: in our reading, services delivers a statement of work; an FDE ships a system, answers for it, and feeds what it learns back into the product.

At Palantir the neighbor is the Deployment Strategist, on team “Echo” while the sits on “Delta”. Source 16Forward Deployed Software EngineerPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job postingSource 17Deployment StrategistPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job postingSource 18Software Engineer - Apollo PlatformPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting Strategists build demos, scope engagements in new industries, and work with FDEs to integrate customer data into “a stable and extensible pipeline”. Source 17Deployment StrategistPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting Databricks draws the same line: its Sr. is the “product manager” for the customer’s problem, owning the why and the what while FDEs own the how. Source 19Sr. Deployment Strategist, FDE - Financial ServicesPublisherDatabricks (careers site / Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting Applying to both? Bring two stories: for the strategist, finding the question a user needed answered; for the engineer, a pipeline you wrote that kept running after you left.

Pre-sale, post-sale, or both

Ask what the role owns after the signature: the revenue, the plan or the running system. “Before or after the sale?” doesn’t settle it, because some FDE roles span both. OpenAI’s FDE posting for financial services in New York asks the FDE to “lead discovery and scoping from pre-sales through post-production”. Source 20Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), Financial Services- NYCPublisherOpenAI (Ashby)Source typecompany job posting

Staying past the signature is not running what you built. Google Cloud’s Platform Customer Engineer drives the technical win, then hands the final delivery plan to implementation teams. Source 21Customer Engineer, Platform, Google Cloud — Google CareersPublisherGoogleSource typecompany job posting Cloudflare’s Customer Engineer keeps its customers after “an initial agreement is reached”, yet provides “oversight” of the implementation and does “not execute” it. Source 4Customer Engineer, KoreaPublisherCloudflare (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting By our tests, both are SE work. A role that answers for the live system is FDE work even if it also runs demos.

Quota, OTE and what the pay basis tells you

Sales roles say it in the pay line: Cloudflare’s Customer Engineer posting for Korea ties a variable quota to new business and account growth. Source 4Customer Engineer, KoreaPublisherCloudflare (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting But OTE is not only a sales label. Okta’s Principal FDE posting states its pay as OTE and defines it as “inclusive of base salary and incentive compensation”. Source 22Principal Forward Deployed Engineer - Okta for AI AgentsPublisherOkta (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting

In Bloomberry’s analysis of 1,000 FDE postings (Revealera data, published November 2025, updated January 2026), 8% mention on-target earnings and 0% are quota-carrying roles. Source 23What I learned analyzing 1K forward deployed engineer jobsPublisherBloomberrySource typeindependent analysis That measures what postings say, not how roles are paid: a posting that doesn’t mention a quota is not promising you have none.

When an engineering title comes with OTE, ask three things on the recruiter call: “What is the base-to-variable split? What is the variable measured on: new bookings, renewals, delivery milestones or company results? Who sets the target?” An answer tied to bookings means you are measured like sales, whatever the title says.

Where the FDE sits in the org chart

The department field often says more than the title. OpenAI’s Ashby board files its San Francisco FDE under “Forward Deployed Engineering” and an Applied AI Architect under “Go To Market”. Source 9Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - SFPublisherOpenAI (Ashby)Source typecompany job postingSource 24Applied AI ArchitectPublisherOpenAI (Ashby)Source typecompany job posting Anthropic’s board files its FDE under “Applied AI” and its Enterprise Account Executive, who carries revenue quotas, under “Sales”. Source 2Enterprise Account Executive, IndustriesPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job postingSource 3Forward Deployed EngineerPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting

The field can mislead, as Anthropic’s pre-sales architect in “Applied AI” shows. Source 1Job Application for Applied AI Architect, Commercial at AnthropicPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting Treat it as evidence, not proof, and ask the hiring manager who they report to and what number that person is measured on.

You can pull the field yourself from the public Greenhouse, Ashby or Lever job APIs, as of the day you run it:

# Greenhouse (Anthropic): title and department
curl -fsS 'https://boards-api.greenhouse.io/v1/boards/anthropic/jobs?content=true' \
  | jq -r '.jobs[] | select(.title | test("forward deployed|applied ai architect"; "i")) | "\(.title) | \([.departments[].name] | join(", "))"' | sort -u

# Ashby (OpenAI): title and department
curl -fsS https://api.ashbyhq.com/posting-api/job-board/openai \
  | jq -r '.jobs[] | select(.title | test("forward deployed|applied ai|deployment engineer"; "i")) | "\(.title) | \(.department)"' | sort -u

# Lever (Palantir): title and team
curl -fsS 'https://api.lever.co/v0/postings/palantir?mode=json' \
  | jq -r '.[] | select(.text | test("forward deployed|deployment strategist"; "i")) | "\(.text) | \(.categories.team)"' | sort -u

Some of what they returned in September 2026, one pair per board: Source 1Job Application for Applied AI Architect, Commercial at AnthropicPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job postingSource 2Enterprise Account Executive, IndustriesPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job postingSource 3Forward Deployed EngineerPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job postingSource 9Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - SFPublisherOpenAI (Ashby)Source typecompany job postingSource 16Forward Deployed Software EngineerPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job postingSource 17Deployment StrategistPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job postingSource 18Software Engineer - Apollo PlatformPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job postingSource 24Applied AI ArchitectPublisherOpenAI (Ashby)Source typecompany job posting

Applied AI Architect, Commercial | Applied AI
Forward Deployed Engineer | Applied AI
Applied AI Architect | Go To Market
Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - SF | Forward Deployed Engineering
Deployment Strategist | Echo
Forward Deployed Software Engineer | Delta

One company, two titles, four tests

All four tests on one employer: Notion’s Forward Deployed Engineer, beside its Forward Deployed Architect.

Verdict: FDE work by the code test, on a Services team inside Sales, paid on OTE. Timing and the incentive stay open, so ask: “After launch, who is on call for what I built?” and “What is the variable measured on?”

A classification exercise on real posting lines

Each line is from a real posting or role description, with company and title removed. Classify each as FDE, SA, SE or SWE work and name the deciding words.

  • Line A. “Technical depth to scope solutions, without needing to write production code.”
  • Line B. “Design and ship production AI systems around models, owning integrations, data flows, reliability, observability, and on-call readiness.”
  • Line C. “Own the technical win in pre-sales by designing POCs.”
  • Line D. “Ship working code. Build prototypes and proof-of-concepts hands-on, develop eval frameworks, and write near-production examples that customers can extend.”
  • Line E. “Individuals who work with our customers to design, build, and ship agents” and “powerful, scalable systems running in production environments.”
  • Line F. “Build and guide development of prototypes, POCs, and reference implementations to accelerate adoption.”
  • Line G. “Be the first contact for any technical issues or questions related to production/go live status of agreed upon use cases within an account.”

Write your label and deciding words before reading on. If you are listening, pause now.

Answers and the deciding words

  • A is SA work. “Without needing to write production code” rules out FDE. Baseten’s Solutions Architect. Source 27Solutions Architect @ BasetenPublisherBaseten (Ashby)Source typecompany job posting
  • B is FDE work. “Ship production” plus “on-call readiness” is a running system the role answers for. OpenAI’s financial-services FDE. Source 20Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), Financial Services- NYCPublisherOpenAI (Ashby)Source typecompany job posting
  • C is the trap. Alone it reads as SE work. It is LangChain’s Deployed Engineer, whose posting also has them co-build production agents with customer engineering teams, and states pay as OTE. Source 28Deployed Engineer (Bay Area) @ LangChainPublisherLangChain (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job posting Verdict: FDE work with SE duties, pre- and post-sale, on OTE.
  • D is SA work, even though it says “ship working code”. Examples “customers can extend” are code the customer takes over, and the same posting calls the role “a Pre-Sales architect” who partners with account executives. Anthropic’s Applied AI Architect. Source 1Job Application for Applied AI Architect, Commercial at AnthropicPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting
  • E is FDE work under a software engineer title. “Work with our customers” plus “running in production” decides it. Sierra’s agent-engineer description, then its “Software Engineer, Agent” posting. Source 29Meet the AI agent engineer (Natalie Meurer)PublisherSierraSource typecompany blogSource 30Software Engineer, AgentPublisherSierra (Ashby)Source typecompany job posting
  • F is SA work under a deployment title. Prototypes and reference implementations that “accelerate adoption” are code others run. OpenAI’s Partner AI Deployment Engineer, filed in Go To Market. Source 31Partner AI Deployment Engineer - AWSPublisherOpenAI (Ashby)Source typecompany job posting
  • G is the tie-breaker. Timing leans FDE, since it answers for go-live, but its listed duties are planning and coordination, not building: it plans the path to production and coordinates with Professional Services on delivery. Verdict: SA work, post-sale, owning the path to production, not the system. Databricks’ Delivery Solutions Architect; its AI FDEs, by contrast, are asked to own production rollouts of GenAI applications. Source 32Delivery Solutions ArchitectPublisherDatabricks (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job postingSource 33AI Engineer – Forward Deployed Engineering (AI FDE)PublisherDatabricks (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting

If C caught you, that is the lesson: one line can rule a role out, as A does, but rarely rules it in. When two tests disagree, as in G, code decides.

Saying it in the loop

On the recruiter call, give your reading, then ask what the posting left open:

“I read this as FDE work: the posting has me own discovery through production rollout. Two things it doesn’t say: after launch, who is on call for what I build? And if part of the pay is variable, what is it measured on?”

When a hiring manager asks why FDE and not SA or software engineering, answer from the code and timing tests:

“I want to own what runs, not what’s proposed. As an architect I’d prototype and hand it on; here I ship to production and answer for it. As a product engineer I’d build one capability for everyone; here I solve one customer’s problem deeply and bring the pattern back to the product.”

Then back it with a story. One candidate reported, in February 2025, that OpenAI’s recruiter screen for Forward Deployed Software Engineer asked about customer-facing experience. Source 34OpenAI Forward Deployed Software Engineer (comment by u/aksss123)PublisherReddit r/leetcodeSource typecandidate report on RedditSource 35OpenAI Forward Deployed Software Engineer (comment by u/aksss123)PublisherReddit r/leetcodeSource typecandidate report on RedditSource 36OpenAI Forward Deployed Software Engineer (comment by u/aksss123)PublisherReddit r/leetcodeSource typecandidate report on Reddit Say who the customer was, where your code ran, and what you owned after it shipped.

That question and the question on why FDE and not software engineering are free with illustrative answers. Pro opens the illustrative answer to the question on a custom build versus a product change, the judgment that sets FDE work apart, and every Pro lesson.

GlossaryForward deployed engineerA software engineer who builds and ships production systems inside a customer’s problem and environment, accountable to that customer’s outcome.More on Forward deployed engineerGlossaryOn-target earningsBase pay plus variable pay if targets are met; a posting that states pay as OTE includes incentive pay in the figure.More on On-target earningsGlossarySolutions architectA customer-facing technical role that designs, advises and often builds proofs of concept; postings place it before the sale, after it, or both.More on Solutions architectGlossaryForward deployed software engineerPalantir’s title for its FDE role, called Delta internally; OpenAI and EY also post FDSE titles, each with its own duties.More on Forward deployed software engineerGlossaryDeployment strategistA customer-facing role that works out the customer’s questions and scope beside FDEs; at some employers the title means a product-manager or quota-carrying role instead.More on Deployment strategistGlossaryModel Context ProtocolAn open protocol for exposing tools and data to models through servers, so agents can call a customer’s systems in a standard way.More on Model Context ProtocolGlossaryAgentA system in which a model chooses steps and tool calls to complete a task, within limits the design sets.More on Agent