Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - Public Sector, Nonprofit & Education

Salesforce; Richmond (VA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Salesforce is hiring Forward Deployed Engineers to design, build, and deploy agentic AI solutions inside customer environments. You’ll work with a Delivery Team and Deployment Strategist to ship production-ready solutions from day one.

You’ll build AI agents, design prompts and tool calls, and own end-to-end components from architecture to observability while collaborating with customers and partners across data pipelines and platforms.

Qualifications

• Has a degree in Computer Science or related field.
• 3+ years of software engineering or technical delivery with at least one production system.
• Experience delivering customer-facing technical projects.
• Proven delivery experience in Public Sector, Higher Education, or Nonprofit environments.
• Fluent in Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, or Apex; willingness to expand.
• Hands-on with LLMs and prompt engineering.
• Strong data modeling, APIs, and integration pattern knowledge.
• Able to engage with sales teams and customer architects.

Responsibilities

• Develop AI agents and experiences that take real actions for real organizations.
• Design agent intelligence: prompts, reasoning, tool calls, and integration with customer systems.
• Own end-to-end components from architecture to deployment and observability.
• Build and integrate data pipelines on Salesforce Data 360, Snowflake, Databricks, and customer data platforms.
• Create and maintain agent performance dashboards and KPI reporting.
• Contribute to proofs-of-concept and MVPs deployable in days.
• Co-build with customers and partners, sharing best practices and enablement.
• Identify platform gaps and surface insights to senior engineers and product teams.
• Partner with Deployment Strategist to translate challenges into solutions that ship.

Skills

Python

JavaScript/TypeScript

Java

Apex

LLMs

Prompt engineering

Data modeling

APIs

Education

Degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

LangChain

LlamaIndex

Snowflake

Databricks

BigQuery

Job description

Salesforce is the #1 AI CRM, where humans and agents drive customer success together. The world of work is evolving, and we’re looking for Trailblazers who are passionate about bettering business and the world through AI, driving innovation, and keeping Salesforce’s core values at the heart of it all.

About the Role

Salesforce is hiring Forward Deployed Engineers — experienced Technical Builders who design, build, and deploy agentic AI solutions directly inside enterprise customer environments. You’ll work as part of a delivery team, partnering closely with a Deployment Strategist to co‑build solutions that go live in production environments from day one.

Builder Experience

• AI‑Powered Development: Ship real customer solutions, supported by best‑in‑class AI tools — Cursor, Claude, and Salesforce coding products like Vibes.
• Collaborative Delivery: Work alongside Senior Forward Deployed Engineers and a Deployment Strategist, owning real components and benefiting from structured mentorship.
• Frontier Access: Work on capabilities most engineers won’t touch for months — spanning Agentforce, data, platform, and headless architectures.
• Continuous Innovation: Stay at the forefront, experiment with emerging AI tools, models, and frameworks, and share learnings with team and customers.

What You’ll Actually Be Building

• Develop AI agents and experiences that take real actions for real organizations.
• Design agent intelligence: prompts, reasoning, tool calls, and integration with customer systems.
• Own technical components end‑to‑end: from architecture choice to deployment, validation, and observability in production.
• Build and integrate data pipelines on Salesforce Data 360, Snowflake, Databricks, and customer data platforms.
• Build and maintain agent performance dashboards and KPI reporting.
• Contribute to proofs‑of‑concept and MVPs that move from sketch to deployable in days.
• Co‑build alongside customers and partners, sharing best practices and enablement.
• Surface platform gaps, edge cases, and field insights to senior Engineers and product teams.
• Partner with the Deployment Strategist to translate customer business challenges into agentic solutions that ship.

You're Our Forward Deployed Engineer If…

• You have a degree in Computer Science or a related field.
• You have 3+ years (6‑10 years for Senior levels) of software engineering or technical delivery experience, with at least one production system you’re proud to walk us through.
• You have prior customer‑facing technical delivery experience — this is a requirement.
• Proven experience managing and delivering customer‑facing projects within Public Sector, Higher Education, or Nonprofit environments.
• You’re fluent in at least one of Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, or Apex, and willing to expand as the work demands.
• You’ve been hands‑on with LLMs and prompt engineering.
• You understand data modeling, APIs, and integration patterns deeply enough to design them.
• You can hold your own in a room with sales teams and customer architects.
• You ship quality code and evaluate AI outputs with engineering rigor.
• You actively tinker with the evolving AI/data landscape and stay truly curious.
• You thrive in the collaborative environment of building rather than just discussing.
• You’re excited to travel about 25% of the time, working directly with customers.

Nice‑to‑Haves

• Salesforce platform experience or certifications (Administrator, Platform Developer I, Agentforce Specialist).
• Familiarity with agent frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex) and orchestration patterns.
• Hands‑on with cloud data platforms (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery).
• Experience across specialist AI delivery areas: data engineering, platform architecture, or headless deployments.

Compensation and Benefits

The typical base salary range for this position is $88,970 – $287,910 annually. Certain roles may be eligible for incentive compensation, equity, and benefits. In California and New York, and select city regions such as Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and Washington DC, the base pay range is $97,860 – $316,750 per year.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

Salesforce is an equal opportunity employer and maintains a policy of non‑discrimination with all employees and applicants for employment. ... [rest of the legal EEO statement omitted for brevity]

Accommodations

If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or recruiting process, please submit a request via this Accommodations Request Form.