AWS Forward Deployed Engineer jobs
A $1B bet: pods of FDEs shipping production agents inside enterprises in sprints of up to 45 days.
The Forward Deployed Engineer role
AWS’s Forward Deployed Engineering org embeds teams of five to six engineers inside enterprise customers for sprints of 45 minutes to 45 days (the “AI 45” model), co-building production agentic AI on Bedrock, Kiro, and Amazon Q — designed to leave customers self-sufficient, with runbooks, knowledge graphs, and trained staff.
“Thousands of experts” planned; early customers include the NBA, NFL, Southwest Airlines, and Cox Automotive.
AWS FDE salary
Base: official amazon.jobs postings, September 2026 — FDE II (US Government, TS/SCI) $143.7k–$213.8k, Senior FDE $168.1k–$261.5k, Principal FDE to $297.7k in NY; sign-on + RSUs on top.
The AWS FDE interview process
- 1FDE-specific loop still not publicly documented as of September 2026
- 2Expect the standard Amazon loop: online assessment
- 3Phone screen
- 4Onsite: coding, system design, and Leadership Principles behavioral
Practice the customer-facing rounds — they decide FDE offers more often than the coding does. Aced’s FDE interview course covers decomposition rounds, client scenarios, and AI system design.
How AWS scores
Index score: 75/100. How we rank →
AWS FDE: common questions
Land the offer, not just the interview.
Practice FDE interview questions, mock interview with peers, and learn the frameworks hiring managers actually score you on.