Scale AI Forward Deployed Engineer jobs
FDEs whose customers include the frontier labs themselves — plus a cleared public-sector track.
The Forward Deployed Engineer, GenAI role
Scale FDEs build customer-specific data infrastructure on the GenAI Data Engine — RLHF and evals pipelines — for frontier labs and enterprises, while Public Sector FDSEs deploy the platform inside secure federal environments.
FDE function since ~2023 across commercial GenAI and federal (Donovan); restructured after Meta’s $14.3B investment.
Scale AI FDE salary
Base: official posted bands, July 2026 — GenAI FDE $179k–$224k; Public Sector FDSE $184k–$293k. Equity on top, unquantified.
The Scale AI FDE interview process
- 1Recruiter screen
- 2Hiring manager call testing business sense and role fit
- 3Live practical coding (~45 minutes)
- 4Onsite: coding, ML/product, and customer-scenario rounds — ~4–5 weeks
Practice the customer-facing rounds — they decide FDE offers more often than the coding does. Exponent’s FDE interview course covers decomposition rounds, client scenarios, and AI system design.
How Scale AI scores
Index score: 65/100. How we rank →
Scale AI 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.
