Employers are paying top dollar for the best FDE talent

Employers are willing to be high rollers to attract top-of-the-line forward-deployed engineers (FDEs), or customer-facing engineers who help organizations implement complex software and AI solutions.

According to a recent report from Christian & Timbers, “elite” FDE talent can bring in anywhere between $586,000 and $1.45 million annually in total compensation (for comparison, compensation benchmarking platform Levels.fyi estimates the median total compensation for FDEs to be $225,000). The AI-centric recruiting firm defines elite FDE talent as ROI generators, often with a background from organizations like Palantir, Anthropic, or an AI-native software company. These above-average professionals drive upward of $10 million in ROI by developing a deep understanding of their business, deploying agentic workflows, and being accountable for business outcomes.

Meager supply. Christian & Timbers estimates there are roughly 2,000 people who qualify as “elite FDE talent” in the US, a small fraction of the 17,000 total FDEs in the country. Despite this, most companies are still eager to get their hands on these professionals, even as the broader industry casts doubt on the longevity of agentic AI projects built by vendor FDEs.

“Every large established company doing a few billion in revenue that I speak to that has decent growth and decent margins and isn’t in bankruptcy emergency mode typically wants an elite FDE,” Christian & Timbers President JC Christian said, adding that this pool of talent can have the right combination of technical acumen, change management skills, and overall gravitas.

“There’s ways to get to each, but typically the fastest way to get there is if you bring in somebody who already has those three things [and] who’s done the job before, and can take people that are your very best but are not quite there at that elite status yet, and help them get there,” Christian added. “That’s the best path and the highest ROI path, in our opinion.”

How to attract top FDE talent. Along with a healthy compensation package, Christian said companies can attract elite FDEs by defining and properly articulating their mission and the potential shareholder value that can be unlocked from their efforts.

“If you take somebody out of Palantir, they might not join a trucking business at the face value of things,” Christian said. “But if the trucking business can articulate where the opportunities are for value, and let’s say that FDE had experience within logistics in general, that would be a very relevant fit.”

Patrick Kelly, founder of FDE of NY, a community group for FDE professionals, emphasized the importance of providing FDEs with a culture of high ownership and autonomy.

“[These are] people that want to do a lot, they want to set things up from scratch. They want to have a team,” Kelly said.

And for those who can’t yet pull top-tier talent? Some companies may struggle to attract seasoned professionals. In this case, Kelly suggested, executives might want to examine different avenues for talent and make “bets” on individuals who can transition into the role. For example, he said companies can tap into the pool of traditional software engineers looking to make a leap into the FDE world.

“There’s so many of these software engineers that are tired of being hidden away from the customer [and] just being given tickets. They want to get closer to outcomes,” Kelly said. “So, they’re there, but you just have to find people that have that knack.”

Christian added that it may help to lean into the value and “coolness factor” of the innovative projects an FDE would help an organization implement.

“If you look at a lot of established companies that nobody knows of, or they’re slower growth, that’s not as cool,” Christian said. “But if you get to be on this new AI team and there’s new AI talent that’s being brought in that are functional experts and industry experts, that helps bring a coolness factor to a smaller team within a larger established company.”