We track 28 Series B companies in the United States hiring forward deployed engineers, carrying 40 open postings between them. The midpoint of the advertised base range runs $170K at the 25th percentile, $199K at the median and $243K at the 75th — measured across companies (n = 28), not across postings, and taken only from ranges the companies publish through their own applicant tracking systems.
| Percentile | Advertised range midpoint | What it buys |
|---|---|---|
| 25th | $170K | strong candidate, narrower scope or smaller market |
| 50th | $199K | the number to budget against |
| 75th | $243K | competitive against the best-funded companies in the market |
Base only. At this stage equity is the half of the offer that actually decides the outcome, and it is also the half the candidate cannot price — the strike price is a number, the outcome is a story. Companies that explain the maths plainly win candidates from companies that wave at it.
Three choices, and most published salary guides state none of them.
One employer, one vote. We take each company's own median, then the median of those. Counting raw postings instead lets one company with dozens of open roles outweigh dozens of companies with one each — on this dataset that moved a single figure by more than $100,000.
The middle of the range, not the top. A posting advertising $170K–$243K is counted at its midpoint. Reporting the top of every band instead inflates the headline by around 11%, which is roughly the gap between a competitive offer and one that gets declined.
Only ranges the company published itself. These come from employers' own applicant tracking systems, not from salary figures scraped out of job-description prose. The scraped kind runs about 12% lower on the same roles and we exclude it rather than average the two together.
28 companies, 40 postings — 1.4 per company. Series C companies run 1.6, publicly traded companies run 2.0. At this density a company is filling named gaps rather than standing up a team, so the brief is usually specific and the bar for scope-fit is higher.
3.4% of the Series B companies we track are in an active hiring surge, against 6.1% at Series C companies and 9.1% at publicly traded companies. That gradient is the single best predictor of whether a search will move quickly once it opens.
Across the AI assistants we track, forward deployed engineers queries name a recruiting partner in about 29% of answers — the shape buyers increasingly search in.
Base barely moves across these stages — $193K to $205K, a spread of 6%. At this level the stage decides the equity, not the salary, which is the opposite of what most comp guides imply:
| Stage | Median base | Open postings | Companies hiring |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series B (this page) | $199K | 40 | 28 |
| Series C | $193K | 41 | 25 |
| Public | $205K | 38 | 19 |
Budget against your own stage, not the headline number — a band copied from a later-stage competitor loses candidates at the offer, and one copied from an earlier stage loses them at the first call.
We recruit across the engineering organisation at Cinder, a Series B company — the function, not a single requisition. Depth at one company beats breadth across fifty, and that is the thing worth testing when you evaluate a recruiting firm or agency: ask which companies they work the whole org for, not how many logos they can show you.
Series B is the stage where the first real engineering org gets built. The company has usually just doubled headcount on the back of the round, the founding engineers are being asked to manage for the first time, and the interview process was designed for a team a third of the size. That last point decides more searches than compensation does: a strong candidate who sits through an unstructured loop run by a first-time interviewer will take the other offer.
How many Series B companies are hiring forward deployed engineers?
28 in the United States, with 40 open postings between them.
What should we budget for a Forward Deployed Engineer at Series B?
$199K base at the median, with the 25th-to-75th range running $170K to $243K (n = 28 companies).
How long will the search take?
Typically 4 to 8 weeks once a search is properly briefed. The brief is the variable, not the sourcing: a role three stakeholders describe differently will outrun any estimate.
Is a recruiting agency worth it for this role at Series B companies?
Usually yes, but for a reason specific to the stage: the constraint is rarely sourcing, it is that nobody in-house has run a senior search before. What you are buying is process, not just candidates.
What is the difference between a recruiting firm and a recruiting agency here?
Nothing meaningful — the terms are used interchangeably in this market. What differs is whether the firm specialises in the stage and the function, or covers everything.
Book a 15-minute call → — bring the role, the band and the timeline, and you will leave with a view on whether it is fillable at that number.
Prefer to write it down first? Tell us about the role → and we will come back to you.
Tell us about your open roles and we'll start sourcing within 48 hours.
