FROM: A10X FIELD DESKTO: FORWARD DEPLOYED ENGINEERSRE: BRIEF №14 · THREE MOVESDATE: NOVEMBER 2026 · WK 47
Three items, each read on 12 November from the employer's own site or from our live board. OpenAI now hires Forward Deployed Engineers by industry. Microsoft prints FDE pay by level, and it is the same band its software engineers get. And outside the US almost no FDE posting prints pay, so you have to ask for it.
hiringOpenAI now hires FDEs by industry
What changed. On 12 November OpenAI's job board listed 39 postings with Forward Deployed or FDE in the title. 11 of them name an industry: Healthcare (3), Legal (2), Cyber (2), Life Sciences (2) and Financial Services (an engineer and a manager). Six of the 11 are dated 5 or 6 November. The 10 engineer postings print one base range, $185K to $300K plus equity, and all 10 say travel up to 50%.
Why it matters to an FDE. The industry is now in the job title, so your industry is part of the match. Financial Services asks for 5+ years of customer-facing engineering in financial services or an adjacent regulated industry. Life Sciences asks for the same in biotech, pharma, clinical research or scientific software. Cyber asks for experience protecting production systems and names SRE, DevOps and infrastructure work as ways in. The Healthcare postings say plainly that prior FDE titles and clinical credentials are not required.
If you have spent years at a bank, a hospital system, a pharma company or on a security team, that is your way in. Apply to the posting that names it, and put that work in your first lines: the systems, the data and the rules you worked under. Decide about the travel before you apply. OpenAI's roles, with direct apply links, are on the live board.compMicrosoft pays its FDEs by level, the same band as its software engineers
What changed. On 12 November Microsoft's careers site had 16 postings with FDE or Forward Deployed in the title, 7 of them in the US. All 7 print a US base range by level. Senior (IC4): $119,800 to $234,700. Principal (IC5): $142,800 to $274,800. In the San Francisco and New York areas the ranges are $160,200 to $261,000 and $188,000 to $304,200. The FDE software engineer, program manager and data scientist at the same level print the same range. The other 9, in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Japan, print no pay. All 7 US postings say Microsoft cannot sponsor a work visa for the role.
Why it matters to an FDE. At Microsoft the title does not set the pay. The level does. A Senior FDE is paid like a Senior software engineer, and the Senior range is about $115K wide. Where you land in it, and which level you are hired at, is settled in the interview loop.
Before the first round, ask the recruiter which level the loop is for. The software postings ask for 4+ years at IC4 and 6+ at IC5, so with 6+ years ask whether you are being considered for IC5. If you need a US work visa, these 7 roles are closed to you as posted.marketPay is printed on 127 of 163 US FDE postings, and on 20 of 186 elsewhere
What changed. We counted it on our live board on 12 November, region by region. US: 127 of 163 postings print a pay range. Canada: 5 of 5. Europe: 10 of 87. APAC: 5 of 51. India: 0 of 7. The Other region (Middle East, Latin America, Africa): 0 of 36. Outside the US that is 20 of 186. This week we also fixed a bug that had filed 23 non-US roles, from Bulgaria to Doha, under US. These counts are after the fix.
Why it matters to an FDE. Outside the US the posting will almost never tell you the pay, so you have to ask, and when you ask matters. In the EU, the pay transparency directive (2023/970) gives applicants the right to the starting pay or its range before the job interview, and says an employer shall not ask about your pay history. Member states had until 7 June 2026 to put it into national law.
Outside the US, ask for the range in the first recruiter call, before any technical round. In the EU, ask for it before the interview and do not offer your current salary. Pick your region on the live board to see which postings near you print pay.The through-line
The posting is the best free information you will get. It names the industry they want, the level that sets the pay, and whether the pay is printed at all. Read it before you prepare, and ask for whatever it leaves out.
See you next Monday.
THE A10X FIELD DESK
Sources: OpenAI jobs board (Ashby), read 2026-11-12; Microsoft careers: FDE search, read 2026-11-12; EU Directive 2023/970 on pay transparency, Articles 5 and 34 (EUR-Lex); A10X live FDE job board, read 2026-11-12; Free 60-minute FDE case; FDE case kit (GitHub).