Take two Palantir (FDSE) postings, as read in September 2026: the New York one asks for travel up to 25% to client sites, “flexible based on personal preferences”; the London NATO one asks for travel throughout Europe 70-90% of the time. Source 1Forward Deployed Software Engineer (New York, NY) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job postingSource 2Forward Deployed Software Engineer - NATO (London) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting In a four-week month, the first is about one week away; the second is about three away, with a week or less at home. The travel line tells you which life you are applying for. “I’m flexible” can carry you through the screen into a mismatch you find in your first engagement. By the end of this lesson you can turn any travel line into weeks away a month, state your limit in one breath, and ask the questions that get you the team’s real number.

Read the travel line before anything else

With a search list from Who hires FDEs, read each posting’s travel line first. In our September 2026 count of public postings, 388 of 806 postings stated a travel percentage, and the highest figure fell in 1-25% for 204 of them, 26-50% for 141, 51-75% for 41 and 76-100% for only 2. Source 3Our analysis: FDE posting censusPublisherfdeinterviewprep.com researchSource typeour analysis of public data A posting with no percentage is not a light one, as the ElevenLabs posting below shows.

A travel sentence has four parts, and each changes what you are agreeing to:

All four on one real line: Scale AI’s Public Sector FDSE posting says “Expect 25% travel with up to 50% travel as necessary”. Source 18Forward Deployed Software Engineer, Public SectorPublisherScale AISource typecompany job posting It adds “and/or relocation to Washington DC or St. Louis.” Source 18Forward Deployed Software Engineer, Public SectorPublisherScale AISource typecompany job posting “Expect” is a norm, not a maybe; the share has a baseline and a ceiling; and “and/or relocation” means a move may replace the travel or add to it.

Your posting

  • The verb, word for word
  • The unit: share of time, frequency or stint length
  • The ceiling, and any baseline
  • The destination, and the base city

Keep these four for the posting page in the next lesson.

Two travel lines, worked end to end

Databricks: “sometimes higher”

Databricks’ FDE postings say: “You enjoy working onsite with customers (often 25-50%, sometimes higher)”. Source 10AI Engineer – Forward Deployed Engineering (AI FDE)PublisherDatabricks (careers site / Greenhouse)Source typecompany job postingSource 19Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer (New York City)PublisherDatabricksSource typecompany job postingSource 20Sr. Deployment Strategist, FDE - Financial ServicesPublisherDatabricksSource typecompany job posting

  • Verb: framed as something you enjoy, but “often” describes the norm.
  • Unit: a share of time.
  • Ceiling: none; “sometimes higher” leaves it open.
  • Destination: customer sites.
  • In weeks: about one to two a month, more at peaks.

Say: “I can do two weeks a month on site, in trips of up to a week, and up to three weeks in a row around a go-live if I get a month’s notice. Every week for a quarter wouldn’t work. When ‘sometimes higher’ happens on this team, how long does it last, and who decides?”

Anthropic: “Estimated”

Anthropic’s US FDE posting lists potential travel to customer sites, “based on location”, “Estimated 25%”. Source 21Forward Deployed Engineer (New York City, NY; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA)PublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse job board)Source typecompany job posting Its FDE postings also expect all staff to be in one of its offices at least 25% of the time. Source 21Forward Deployed Engineer (New York City, NY; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA)PublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse job board)Source typecompany job posting

  • Verb: “potential”, the softest of the lot.
  • Unit: a share of time, plus a second share for the office.
  • Ceiling: an estimate, neither a cap nor a promise.
  • Destination: customer sites, depending on where you are based.
  • In weeks: about one away a month, and about a week’s worth of days in an office.

Say: “About a week a month on site works for me, and so does the office time. In a week I’m at a customer, does that count toward the office requirement, or is it on top?” No posting we read answers it, and OpenAI’s San Francisco posting, with 3 office days a week and travel up to 50%, raises it too. Source 12Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - SF | OpenAIPublisherOpenAISource typecompany job posting

The range between employers, and inside one

The two Palantir postings above span most of the range. Anduril’s FDE (Air Defense) posting adds a stint length: it asks for travel to remote regions for up to two months at a time, up to 80% of the year. Source 22Forward Deployed Engineer, Air Defense (FDE)PublisherAnduril Industries (Greenhouse job board)Source typecompany job posting Both it and the Palantir NATO posting ask for a clearance, or the ability or eligibility to obtain one; that is two postings, not a pattern. Source 2Forward Deployed Software Engineer - NATO (London) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job postingSource 22Forward Deployed Engineer, Air Defense (FDE)PublisherAnduril Industries (Greenhouse job board)Source typecompany job posting For defense or government work, read the stint length as closely as the percentage, and prepare for the clearance and mission question.

The number moves inside one employer too:

So treat your limit as a routing question, not a pass-or-fail answer: ask which teams run closest to your number.

Remote does not mean no travel

Remote tells you where you live between trips, not how many there are:

PostHog is the labeled exception: it describes its FDE as fully remote and async, “a weird experiment for those used to the typical FDE setup”. Source 31WTF is a forward deployed engineer? (and why everyone is hiring them)PublisherPostHog (Jina Yoon)Source typecompany blog

The listed location is your base, not necessarily where your customers are: the NATO posting is based in London and travels throughout Europe. Source 2Forward Deployed Software Engineer - NATO (London) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting If a posting offers or expects relocation and you won’t move, say so in the first conversation.

What individual accounts describe

  • It depends on the team. On Blind in February 2023, a Palantir-tagged poster who described themselves as a new-grad FDE wrote that travel “depends on your team”: some teams travel every other week, some are centralized, others have occasional on-site visits. Source 32palantir forward deployed software engineerPublisherBlindSource typecandidate report on Blind A second Palantir-tagged poster said they travel about once every 4-6 weeks and that “it’s pretty optional”. Source 32palantir forward deployed software engineerPublisherBlindSource typecandidate report on Blind
  • What the weeks look like. As reported by The Wall Street Journal in March 2026, Hex founder Barry McCardel, a Palantir FDE for about five years, described the job as “spending a lot of time on planes, sleeping in three-star hotels, somewhere in middle America, and working out of a dimly lit windowless conference room where there’s not enough charging ports.” Source 33The Hottest Job in Tech Isn’t Very Glamorous (WSJ, republished)PublisherThe Wall Street Journal via IT Executives CouncilSource typenews report
  • What the weeks cost. LeadDev reported, in July 2026, that Piotr Kraus, an ex-Palantir FDE, said constant travel makes the role susceptible to burnout earlier than other roles. Source 34The rise of the forward-deployed engineer (FDE)PublisherLeadDevSource typenews report

No source in our research gives attrition, tenure or exit-reason data for FDEs, or measures stated travel against travel actually done, so nothing supports the claim that travel is why people leave. Use these accounts to form questions, not forecasts.

Decide your limit, then ask

Read from the employer’s side, the time on site is the job, not a tax on it. Anthropic’s postings describe travel “to customer sites to build in person with customers”, and Scale’s enterprise page says it embeds in customer organizations and builds “from your office, not ours”. Source 21Forward Deployed Engineer (New York City, NY; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA)PublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse job board)Source typecompany job postingSource 26Forward Deployed Engineer (London, UK)PublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse job board)Source typecompany job postingSource 27Forward Deployed Engineer (Munich, Germany)PublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse job board)Source typecompany job postingSource 35Scale AI EnterprisePublisherScale AISource typecompany website So pair your limit with why you want to be there: “The weeks on site are where I find out what the users actually do, so I want them. My limit is how many, not whether.”

Some employers ask before any call: Palantir’s US Government FDSE application form asks whether you support the posting’s travel percentage and frequent business travel to Europe or the IndoPacific. Source 36Apply: Forward Deployed Software Engineer - US Government (Washington, D.C.) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting

Write your limit in the units your life runs on: weeks on site a month, the longest stint, the notice you need, and the dates you will not move (care duties, a partner’s job, a visa or clearance). Then convert the posting into the same units. In a four-week month:

PostedWeeks awayFeels like
25% Source 1Forward Deployed Software Engineer (New York, NY) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job postingabout oneone site week a month
50% Source 6Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - SFPublisherOpenAISource typecompany job postingSource 7Forward Deployed Software Engineer - NYCPublisherOpenAISource typecompany job postingSource 8Forward Deployed Engineer - London (Spanish-speaking)PublisherOpenAISource typecompany job postingabout twoevery other week
70-90% Source 2Forward Deployed Software Engineer - NATO (London) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job postingabout three to three and a halfhome about a week a month, or less

Each quarter of your time is about a week a month away.

Count nights, not days: a site week that starts Monday morning means a Sunday-evening or pre-dawn flight out and a late flight home, and no posting quoted here says whether travel days count toward the percentage.

“I’m flexible” gives the recruiter nothing to route on; a limit gives them a team to match. In one breath: “I can do up to [weeks] on site a month, no single stretch over [length], with [notice] of notice. What wouldn’t work is [the pattern].”

If you already said you’re flexible

Correct it with the person you told as soon as you have your number, and no later than the hiring-manager round. A two-line email to the recruiter works: “When we spoke I said I was flexible on travel. Having worked it through, I can do up to two weeks a month on site, in trips of up to a week. Could you tell me which teams fit that?” If the offer arrives with travel still vague, ask for the team’s expectation in writing.

Ask the recruiter

  • What do “flexible”, “as needed” or “up to” mean on this team, and whose flexibility is it: mine or the client’s?
  • Which teams here run closest to my limit, and can I be considered for them?
  • Does the percentage count days on site, or nights away including travel days?

Ask the hiring manager

  • On this team, how many weeks away did engineers spend last quarter?
  • Is travel a rhythm or a stint, and do on-site weeks count toward office days?
  • Who decides when I travel, with how much notice, and who flies when a customer escalates?
  • Which customers would I start with, and where are they?

If the answers stay vague, ask to meet an engineer on the team. Then write your answer to the travel question for your posting.

Keep going. The travel question is free, with an illustrative answer to compare yours against, and every one of the site’s 180 practice questions shows its framework free. One of its follow-ups, “Have you done sustained travel for work before? What did it cost you?”, is the sustained heavy load question in another form, and Pro opens its illustrative answer. For a defense or government posting, Pro also opens the illustrative answer to the clearance and mission question.

GlossaryForward 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 engineerGlossaryForward 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 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 strategist