Cognition vs Cursor (Anysphere) vs Replit

Three AI-coding companies, three very different deployment seats. Cognition runs a dozen-deep Deployed Engineer fleet landing Devin inside customer stacks; Cursor is standing up a global FDE org across SF and London to roll its agents out to huge enterprise dev teams; Replit is hiring the person who builds its FDE function from zero.

	Cognition	Cursor (Anysphere)	Replit
Open roles	2	1	1
Comp on board	$95K–$132K (base)	Undisclosed	$300K–$400K
FDE type	True forward-deployed	True forward-deployed	True forward-deployed
Travel	High	Medium	Medium
Comp	Equity-heavy	Undisclosed	Competitive
Stage	Late-stage	Late-stage	Growth-stage
Our take	The clearest proof that even the autonomous-coding leader still needs humans for the last mile — and it pays mostly in equity.	A code-AI juggernaut building a global FDE org — now inside SpaceX after the largest startup acquisition on record.	Hiring someone to build its FDE org from zero at $300–400K — proof the role now has a management track, not just an IC ceiling.

Bottom line

Pick Cognition for the most hands-on, high-travel, equity-weighted deployment work (and the only cleared federal seat of the three). Pick Cursor for scale and brand on your resume, but press for a number since comp isn't posted. Pick Replit only if you're ready to stop being an IC: $300K–$400K buys you an org to build, not a queue of customers.