Forward Deployed Engineer
San Francisco Bay Area, CAJobPosted 3 days agoStill listed 1 day ago
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At a glance
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Job overview
Feather Robotics is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to deploy and maintain robots for customers. The role involves hands-on debugging and tuning across hardware, software, and controls, working directly with customers at their sites, and sharing field learnings with engineering. The position includes travel to customer sites about 15% of the time.
Skills & qualifications
Skills
Qualifications
Full job description
About the job We're looking for an FDE to put robots to work in the real world. You will make Feather's units run for our customers, debugging and tuning controls in the field so our robots can do their jobs. This is a hands-on role for someone comfortable across hardware, software, and problem-solving in partnership with our customers.
About Feather Feather is a VC-backed startup assembling a world-class team to build general-purpose robots. While competitors pursue end-to-end integration, we are focused on creating the best labor platform on which others will build, monetize, and scale, fostering an ecosystem of solutions akin to Apple’s or Nvidia’s.
We’ve moved through the hardware lifecycle at lightspeed -- building our first prototype in two months, fulfilling our first order in nine months (vs. 31 months for Figure), and working with a $4B revenue manufacturer. Our units are deployed across several fields today, including cooking, retail, manufacturing, and more.
Responsibilities
- Deploy, debug, and maintain Feather units in the field, diagnosing issues across software, control, and hardware
- Integrate new components and adapt control layer to keep deployments running
- Work directly with customers to understand their environment and resolve issues on-site
- Feed field learnings back to the engineering team to advance our deployment playbook
- Travel to customer sites ~15% of time
What we're looking for
- Strong software fundamentals and the ability to read, write, and debug production code (Python, C++, Rust)
- Practical robotics and high- / low-level controls experience
- Experience with ROS2 or real-time systems, or prior field or deployment experience
- Ability to interface with customers in high-stakes situations
- Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Robotics, Software Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field
We are open to applications from exceptional generalist engineers from rigorous backgrounds who are prepared to get their hands dirty in the field.
Why Join Us
- Be the reason that humanoid robots move into the real world. Our FDEs touch every part of the stack and are the face of Feather to our customers
- Shape the future of robotics and physical AI in a tight-knit, driven team that values ownership, speed, and creativity
- We have the capital, the hardware ownership, and the generational upside to make this your life's work
How this job compares
Set against the 2,799 open Forward Deployed Engineer jobs on Olive Jobs, counted November 10, 2026.
- Pay
- This postingNot listed
- California median$156–265K/yr546 salary ranges
- US median$27–35/hr22 hourly ranges
- Openings
- Olive Jobs lists 657 open Forward Deployed Engineer jobs in California and 2,799 across the US. 6% of them nationwide are listed as remote or flexible.
- Experience
- Forward Deployed Engineer postings that state a minimum ask for 5 years of experience at the median; the middle half ask for 3 to 7 years (2,417 postings).
- Education
- 510 of the 2,799 open Forward Deployed Engineer jobs (18%) ask for a bachelor's degree or higher.
Counted across the open, public US postings on Olive Jobs on November 10, 2026. Pay medians are the middle values of the low ends and of the high ends of postings that list both ends of a range in the same cadence (a yearly salary or an hourly rate); a range's midpoint is halfway between its ends. Pay and experience figures resting on fewer than 20 postings are left out.
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