FDE Dispatch

Shield AI Forward Deployed Engineer: what the postings ask for

By Kris Diallo · Founder, FDE Dispatch · November 2026

Published

Shield AI posts Forward Deployed engineer seats under Autonomy, Operations & Sustainment, and a London FDE II / Senior / Staff ladder. In FDE Dispatch's November 3, 2026 snapshot of public job boards, Shield AI has 8 in-page postings, all engineer family, tied for 16th of 114 employers with Thomson Reuters (15 employers have more). Those 8 rows are 6 distinct roles: the Autonomy and Operations seats were each posted twice, once on Lever and once on Ashby, and the snapshot counts each copy. 2 of the 8 rows are remote, against 176 of 704 (25.0%) across the snapshot. Autonomy's Senior Engineer pay line is $152,000 to $228,000 in the US. On the November 7, 2026 live check, 4 of the 8 rows were still open. FDE Dispatch is not affiliated with Shield AI; the figures come from Shield AI's public job postings.

What Shield AI calls the role

Shield AI posts three engineer tracks across Lever and Ashby: Autonomy (open level), Operations & Sustainment (open level), and a London ladder of FDE II, Senior, and Staff. All eight snapshot rows are engineer family. There are no intern seats and no management seats in this set.

London covers Forward Deployed Engineer II (5951) (Hybrid), Senior Forward Deployed Engineer (5961) (Hybrid), Staff Forward Deployed Engineer (5021) (Hybrid; on November 7 its page was still up but it had dropped off Shield AI's job feed, so this page treats it as closing and does not link it), and Staff Forward Deployed Engineer (R4962) (closed on the November 7 live check; not linked). Autonomy is Forward Deployed Engineer, Autonomy (open level) on Lever (remote; United States with San Diego, Dallas, and Washington, D.C. listed) plus an Ashby cross-post that returned 404 on November 7. Operations & Sustainment is Forward Deployed Engineer, Operations & Sustainment - open level (R5497) on Lever (Hybrid; San Diego with Washington, D.C. and Remote listed) plus an Ashby cross-post that returned 404 on November 7.

Track Postings Places / workplace ATS
Forward Deployed Engineer II1London HybridLever
Forward Deployed Engineer, Autonomy2US remote (Lever); US Ashby cross-post closed Nov 7Lever + Ashby
Forward Deployed Engineer, Operations & Sustainment2San Diego Hybrid with Remote listed (Lever); Ashby cross-post closed Nov 7Lever + Ashby
Senior Forward Deployed Engineer1London HybridLever
Staff Forward Deployed Engineer2London Hybrid (5021 closing; R4962 closed)Lever
Total (in-page)8London, US remote, San DiegoLever + Ashby

Autonomy Lever+Ashby and Ops Lever+Ashby are the same role families cross-posted. The November 3 index counts them as eight rows. Title variants across employers are on Forward Deployed Engineer job titles.

What the open-level and London seats ask for

Forward Deployed Engineer II in London states Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, and 2+ years of industry experience, OR Master’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, and 1+ years of industry experience. Stack: Strong proficiency in writing modern C++ code. Travel: Deploy with customers on site (~30% travel) to support software integration and development activities.

Senior Forward Deployed Engineer in London states Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, and 5+ years of industry experience or Master’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, and 3+ years of industry experience. The same modern C++ proficiency line and ~30% travel line appear on the Senior text.

Forward Deployed Engineer, Autonomy (open level) states 5+ years of experience of industry experience and 2+ years of experience in an integration/applications engineering role, plus Strong proficiency in writing modern C++ code. and Intermediate proficiency in writing Python code. Travel: Deploy with customers on site globally (~50% travel) to support software integration and development activities. The same text also states This role is travel-intensive, with frequent trips, often international, and sometimes lasting multiple weeks. Open-level pay bands on that seat cover Senior, Staff, and Senior Staff.

Forward Deployed Engineer, Operations & Sustainment states 5+ years of experience in field engineering, forward-deployed engineering, applications engineering, systems integration, flight test, robotics support, unmanned systems operations, technical operations, customer deployment, or a similar hands-on technical role. Stack: Proficiency writing, reading, and debugging modern C++ code. and Working proficiency with Python, Bash, or similar scripting for diagnostics, automation, data handling, and field support workflows. Travel: Deploy with customers on site globally, with an expectation of up to 50% travel, to support installation, configuration, validation, training, troubleshooting, and sustainment of Hivemind products. and Willingness and ability to travel at least 50% of the time, including frequent domestic and international travel and multi-week deployments.

London and Autonomy texts also describe Hivemind enterprise software, autonomy modules, and AI & Autonomy applications via the Shield AI SDK. The full skill counts across employers are on Forward Deployed Engineer skills.

Posted US pay bands on Autonomy and Ops

Three of eight snapshot rows list a numeric USD range. Autonomy Lever posts an ATS range of $152,000 to $318,000 with leveled lines Senior Engineer: $152000-$228,000, Staff Engineer $181,000 to $272,000, and Senior Staff Engineer $212,000 to $318,000. Ops Lever posts an ATS range of $156,000 to $320,000 with leveled lines Senior Engineer: $156,000-$234,000, Staff Engineer $182,000 to $273,000, and Senior Staff Engineer $213,000 to $320,000. The Autonomy Ashby cross-post listed $152,000 to $228,000 on the snapshot (Senior-aligned) and was closed on November 7. London seats post no pay range. These are annual base ranges as posted. Do not treat them as OTE. Posted ranges are not offers.

Seat Level line As posted
Autonomy (Lever)Senior Engineer$152,000 to $228,000
Autonomy (Lever)Staff Engineer$181,000 to $272,000
Autonomy (Lever)Senior Staff Engineer$212,000 to $318,000
Ops (Lever)Senior Engineer$156,000 to $234,000
Ops (Lever)Staff Engineer$182,000 to $273,000
Ops (Lever)Senior Staff Engineer$213,000 to $320,000

Equity language appears on 4 of 8 snapshot rows (Autonomy Lever+Ashby and both Ops rows). The four London rows do not mention equity. No grant sizes are stated. The October 24, 2026 US engineer-title median midpoint across 255 US engineer-title postings is $216,104 on Forward Deployed Engineer salary.

Where the roles are

Four of eight seats are London Hybrid (FDE II, Senior, both Staff). Autonomy Lever is labeled remote with United States, San Diego, Dallas, and Washington, D.C. listed. Ops Lever is labeled Hybrid with San Diego primary and Washington, D.C. plus Remote in its listed locations. The two Ashby cross-posts had null workplace labels on the snapshot.

Under the remote index (board marks posting remote with Greenhouse flags excluded, or a listed location contains Remote; Coinbase Remote Zone excluded), 2 of 8 are remote, against 176 of 704 (25.0%) across the snapshot: Autonomy Lever (board remote flag) and Ops Lever (Remote in listed locations).

Metro figures for every employer are on Forward Deployed Engineer jobs by location.

Travel

Travel language appears on all eight snapshot rows. London FDE II, Senior, and both Staff seats state about 30% travel. Autonomy and Ops seats state about 50% travel, including multi-week deployments on Ops. Employer travel figures are on how much forward deployed engineers travel.

Export-control and clearance-preferred language on Ops

Operations & Sustainment required qualifications include Ability to comply with export-control, security, safety, sensitive-data, customer-site, and mission-specific operating requirements. Preferred qualifications on that seat include Active or prior security clearance, or eligibility to obtain one when required by program or customer need.

The open FDE II, Senior London, and Autonomy Lever texts do not state a security clearance, Secret, TS/SCI, ITAR, or U.S. Person block in required qualifications. This page does not invent a blanket U.S. Person rule for Shield AI. How clearance and citizenship lines appear across employers is on do forward deployed engineer jobs require a security clearance.

Staff seats

Two of the eight snapshot seats are Staff Forward Deployed Engineer in London. On November 7, Staff (5021) still had a public page with an apply button but no longer appeared in Shield AI's job feed; this page treats that seat as closing and does not link it. Its page text states Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, and 7+ years of industry experience or Master’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, and 5+ years of industry experience. Staff (R4962) returned 404 on November 7; this page does not invent years or stack quotes for that closed seat. Staff seats and Staff pay bands on Autonomy and Ops are listed on this page; they are excluded from the mid-page and closing program framing aimed at FDE II, Senior, and open-level seats.

What this means if you are preparing for a Shield AI Forward Deployed loop

  1. Pick the track by the work. Autonomy and London FDE II / Senior seats emphasize modern C++ and Hivemind / Shield AI SDK customer deployment. Ops adds field troubleshooting across Linux, embedded, networking, and telemetry with Python or Bash for diagnostics.
  2. Match the years line to the seat. London FDE II clusters at 2+ (or 1+ with a Master’s). Senior London and open-level Autonomy / Ops cluster at 5+. Staff asks for 7+ and sits outside the mid-page program framing.
  3. Read Hybrid and remote as labeled. London seats are Hybrid. Autonomy Lever is remote. Ops Lever is Hybrid with Remote in locations. Two of eight rows are remote under the remote index used on this site.
  4. Use the posted US bands as a check, not an offer. Autonomy Senior is posted from $152,000 to $228,000. Ops Senior is posted from $156,000 to $234,000. London seats post no pay range.

Round formats for FDE loops are on the FDE interview loop, explained, and practice prompts on FDE interview practice questions.

Live check November 7, 2026

On November 7, 2026 (PT), FDE Dispatch re-checked every Shield AI FDE-family posting from the November 3 in-page snapshot. Four seats were still open: FDE II, Autonomy on Lever, Ops on Lever, and Senior London. Staff Forward Deployed Engineer (5021) still had a public page but had dropped off Shield AI's job feed, so it is treated as closing and not linked. Closed: the Autonomy and Ops copies on Ashby, and Staff R4962. Snapshot figures on this page stay dated November 3. Live evidence links on this page go to the four seats still open on November 7.

Method and data

Population: the 8 Shield AI rows counted in page statistics among the 704 FDE-family postings from 114 employers in the November 3, 2026 postings snapshot. All 8 are engineer-family titles. Rank by posting count is 16th, tied with Thomson Reuters at 8; 15 employers have more (Databricks 115, Palantir 105, Salesforce 51, Accenture 39, OpenAI 33, LangChain 16, Cognition 15, Cohere 13, ElevenLabs 12, Cursor 11, Scale AI 11, Chalk 9, Cloudflare 9, Saronic 9, Snowflake 9).

Track comes from the title. Remote uses the remote index (board marks posting remote (Greenhouse flags excluded) or a listed location contains Remote; Coinbase Remote Zone excluded), the same method as the November 3 change log at 176 of 704 (25.0%). Workplace labels, travel mentions, equity flags, and snapshot pay fields come from the snapshot rows; years, stack, travel wording, pay level lines, and Ops export-control / clearance-preferred lines are hand-verified from the posting texts re-fetched November 7, 2026 for open seats (Staff 5021 from its still-public page). Counts are open postings on one day and do not measure headcount.

Downloads: Shield AI JSON, field notes, and the per-posting November 3 postings JSON. All published datasets are listed on FDE Dispatch job-posting data. Built by scripts/build-shield-ai-aggregate.py from the snapshot plus scripts/shield-ai-evidence-2026-11-07.json.

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Questions people ask

Does Shield AI hire Forward Deployed Engineers?

Yes. Shield AI had 8 FDE-family postings in FDE Dispatch's November 3, 2026 snapshot, all engineer family, tied for 16th of 114 employers with Thomson Reuters: Forward Deployed Engineer II in London; Forward Deployed Engineer, Autonomy (open level) on Lever and Ashby; Forward Deployed Engineer, Operations & Sustainment (open level) on Lever and Ashby; Senior Forward Deployed Engineer in London; and two Staff Forward Deployed Engineer London seats. Autonomy and Ops were dual-listed on Lever and Ashby (each copy counted, so the 8 rows are 6 distinct roles). On November 7, 2026, 4 of the 8 rows were still open.

How much does a Shield AI Forward Deployed Engineer make?

Autonomy Lever posts leveled US bands: Senior Engineer $152,000 to $228,000, Staff Engineer $181,000 to $272,000, and Senior Staff Engineer $212,000 to $318,000 (ATS range $152,000 to $318,000). Ops Lever posts Senior Engineer $156,000 to $234,000, Staff Engineer $182,000 to $273,000, and Senior Staff Engineer $213,000 to $320,000 (ATS range $156,000 to $320,000). The Autonomy Ashby cross-post listed $152,000 to $228,000 on the snapshot and was closed on the November 7 live check. London FDE II, Senior, and Staff seats post no pay range. Posted ranges are not offers.

What do Shield AI Forward Deployed Engineer postings ask for?

Years differ by seat. London FDE II asks for a Bachelor's with 2+ years of industry experience or a Master's with 1+ years. Senior London asks for a Bachelor's with 5+ years or a Master's with 3+ years. Autonomy open level asks for 5+ years of industry experience and 2+ years in an integration or applications engineering role, plus strong modern C++ and intermediate Python. Ops open level asks for 5+ years in field, forward-deployed, applications, systems integration, or similar hands-on technical work, plus modern C++ and working Python or Bash. London seats emphasize strong modern C++ and Hivemind / Shield AI SDK work. Travel is about 30% on London seats and about 50% on Autonomy and Ops.

Are Shield AI Forward Deployed Engineer jobs remote?

Under the remote index (board marks posting remote with Greenhouse flags excluded, or a listed location contains Remote; Coinbase Remote Zone excluded), 2 of 8 are remote, against 176 of 704 (25.0%) across the snapshot: Autonomy Lever is labeled remote, and Ops Lever lists Remote among its locations while labeled Hybrid. London FDE II, Senior, and both Staff seats are Hybrid. The two Ashby cross-posts had no workplace label on the snapshot.

Do Shield AI Forward Deployed Engineer roles require a security clearance?

Operations & Sustainment required qualifications include ability to comply with export-control, security, safety, sensitive-data, customer-site, and mission-specific operating requirements. Preferred qualifications on that seat include active or prior security clearance, or eligibility to obtain one when required by program or customer need. The open FDE II, Senior London, and Autonomy Lever texts do not state a security clearance, Secret, TS/SCI, ITAR, or U.S. Person block in required qualifications. FDE Dispatch does not invent a blanket U.S. Person rule for Shield AI.

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