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Forward Deployed Engineer Jobs in India

15 open roles. FDE roles in India — Bengaluru-led, and a fast-growing sovereign-AI and enterprise market.

📄 Related guide: FDE hiring in India →

Our take

Why India

Bengaluru-led and fast-growing — sovereign-AI and enterprise are pulling FDE seats in.

Market depth
Growing
Remote
Low
Comp
Undisclosed

A good fit if you're…

  • Engineers who want in early on India’s FDE market
  • People targeting sovereign-AI and enterprise deployment work
  • Candidates who want a founding-era seat close to home

The scene

India is a fast-growing FDE market, led by Bengaluru. It is still early — the seats that exist tend to be founding-era rather than established teams — but the trajectory is one of the steepest on the board.

Who hires here

Demand is anchored by the sovereign-AI push and enterprise deployment. Notably, labs are beginning to plant a second geography here: Cartesia, for example, opened a Bangalore FDE seat running the same role it runs in SF and London.

Comp context

Most India FDE reqs on the board don’t publish comp, which is normal for the region rather than a warning sign. Where bands do surface, founding-FDE roles have shown competitive local packages relative to the market.

Analysis updated 2026-09-02

Open roles in India

Deployment Inc

Forward Deployed Engineer

Not disclosed (founding team + equity)

The purest bet yet that 'FDE' is a business model, not just a role: Cars24 spun out Deployment Inc — India's first dedicated forward-deployed AI firm — with $5M, an OpenAI Select Partner badge, and a plan to hire ~50 engineers (mostly FDEs) in a single month. Led by a Cars24 exec and an ex-xAI backend engineer, embedding pods inside India's largest enterprises. Founding-team leverage, in Gurugram, not SF.

Gurugram, IndiaindiaFDE-as-the-companyOpenAI Select Partner
Databricks

Senior Forward Deployed Engineer

Not disclosed

Senior FDE on Databricks' deployment team in Bengaluru, India (comp not disclosed for this geo). Part of the largest forward-deployed engineering org outside Palantir — Databricks now runs FDE across dozens of geos and verticals simultaneously.

Bengaluru, IndiaDatabricksdata platformGenAI
Cartesia

Forward Deployed Engineer (India)

Not disclosed

The State Space Models lab opens a Bangalore FDE seat — the same real-time voice-AI deployment role it runs in SF and London, now planted in India's enterprise market. A second Cartesia geo on the board and one of the few founding-era FDE roles anchored in Bengaluru.

Bangalore, Indiavoice AIindianew geo
Deployment Inc

FDE Engineering Manager

Not disclosed (founding team + equity)

The management-track seat at India's first pure-play FDE firm — lead pods across concurrent enterprise deployments while staying hands-on. A founding-manager role at a $5M Cars24-backed, OpenAI-partnered venture that's stampeding to ~50 hires this month: you build the org that defines what an Indian FDE team even looks like.

Gurugram, Indiaindiamanagement trackplayer-coach
Salesforce

Agentforce Forward Deployed Engineer

Not disclosed

Salesforce is standing up Agentforce FDE seats in Hyderabad and Bangalore — the FDE title going offshore at platform scale. With Bengaluru now ~45% of India's FDE job descriptions, the delivery-hub playbook has reached the CRM giant's flagship AI product.

Hyderabad / Bangalore, Indiaagentforceindiadelivery hub
Whatfix

Lead AI Forward Deployed Engineer

Not disclosed

A digital-adoption unicorn spinning up a Bengaluru-based FDE lead who flies to US & Europe accounts — Whatfix is betting its new GenAI features need embedded engineers, not just CSMs. One of the few senior FDE seats in India that isn't at a pure-play consultancy.

Bengaluru, Indiaindiadigital adoptionenterprise
MongoDB

Forward Deployed Engineer, AI

$118K–$231K (Senior Staff to ~$297K)

When the database layer starts hiring FDEs, the pattern is officially infrastructure-wide. MongoDB (NASDAQ: MDB) just stood up a Forward Deployed Engineering org from scratch — Atlas plus AI app-modernization — spanning seven-plus geos on two continents. IC band $118K–$231K, Senior Staff reaching ~$297K.

Remote (US) / Ireland / Barcelona / London / Germany / Netherlands / Indiadata platformpublic companynew FDE org
Adaption

Founding Forward Deployed Machine Learning Engineer

Not disclosed

A 'Founding' Forward Deployed ML Engineer at a young lab hiring across SF, Singapore, and India at once — founding scope on the customer-facing edge, where you 'operate at the bleeding edge of our technology and our customers' most consequential problems simultaneously.'

San Francisco / Singapore / India (on-site)founding titlethree geosapplied ML
ElevenLabs

Forward Deployed Engineer (Software Engineer)

Not disclosed

An $11B, $781M-raised voice-AI leader running a fully remote-global FDE seat — rare for a function usually chained to on-site enterprise work. The paper bar is unusually low ('customers in student clubs count'); the real bar is high: you own end-to-end builds for their most strategic accounts.

Remote (SF, NY, France, Brazil, India)voice AIremote-globalenterprise deploy
Databricks

Staff Forward Deployed Engineer

Not disclosed

Staff FDE on Databricks' deployment team in Remote - India (comp not disclosed for this geo). Part of the largest forward-deployed engineering org outside Palantir — Databricks now runs FDE across dozens of geos and verticals simultaneously.

Remote - IndiaDatabricksdata platformGenAIremote
HackerRank

Forward Deployed Engineer

Not disclosed

HackerRank is standing up an FDE function from scratch — a Director search plus ICs on three continents at once. Early enough to shape the playbook, at a company every engineer already knows.

New York / London / Bengaluru (hybrid)devtoolsnew FDE org3 continents
Sarvam AI

Forward Deployed Engineer

Not disclosed

India's sovereign-AI lab is hiring FDEs four postings deep — the Mistral playbook replayed for a market of 1.4B, and the first Bengaluru seat on this board.

Bengalurusovereign AIindiafour FDE postings
Databricks

Sr Forward Deployed Engineer

Not disclosed

Senior FDE on Databricks' deployment team in Remote - India (comp not disclosed for this geo). Part of the largest forward-deployed engineering org outside Palantir — Databricks now runs FDE across dozens of geos and verticals simultaneously.

Remote - IndiaDatabricksdata platformGenAIremote
Databricks

Forward Deployed Engineer

Not disclosed

Mid/Senior FDE on Databricks' deployment team in Remote - India (comp not disclosed for this geo). Part of the largest forward-deployed engineering org outside Palantir — Databricks now runs FDE across dozens of geos and verticals simultaneously.

Remote - IndiaDatabricksdata platformGenAIremote
Databricks

AI Engineer - FDE (Forward Deployed Engineer)

Not disclosed

Mid/Senior FDE on Databricks' deployment team in Remote - India (comp not disclosed for this geo). Part of the largest forward-deployed engineering org outside Palantir — Databricks now runs FDE across dozens of geos and verticals simultaneously.

Remote - IndiaDatabricksdata platformGenAIremote

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