FDE Comp Explorer

Forward deployed engineer pay is not one number, and this explorer refuses to pretend it is. Pick an employer tier, a level and a market, and the estimate splits into base salary, annualized equity and bonus, with a band whose width reflects how good the source behind that tier is. It is a transparent multiplier model with its anchors stated, not a scraped table.

What it computes

Each tier has an anchor: total compensation for a senior FDE in a major US market. Level and market scale it, and the tier's own shares split it.

total        = anchor × level_mult × market_mult
equity_share = min(0.75, equity × geo_damp × level_lift)
  geo_damp   = 0.75 if market_mult < 0.9, else 1
  level_lift = 1.08 if level_mult ≥ 1.5, else 1
equity       = total × equity_share
bonus        = total × bonus_share
base         = total − equity − bonus
band         = total × (1 − spread) to total × (1 + spread)
cash         = base + bonus

Level multipliers are Junior 0.5, Mid 0.72, Senior 1.0, Staff 1.55 and Principal 2.05. Market multipliers are SF / NYC 1.0, US other 0.85, London / Dublin / Berlin 0.62 and India 0.3. Amounts under $1M print in whole thousands and larger ones as $X.XXM. The base and equity percentages are rounded and bonus takes the remainder, so the three always add to 100.

A worked example

The explorer opens on Frontier labs, Senior, SF / NYC.

1. Total: 450,000 × 1.0 × 1.0 = 450,000, shown as $450K.
2. Equity share: the market multiplier is not below 0.9 and the level multiplier is not 1.5 or more, so the share stays at 0.62. Equity is 450,000 × 0.62 = 279,000, or $279K (62%).
3. Bonus: 450,000 × 0.04 = 18,000, or $18K (4%).
4. Base: 450,000 − 279,000 − 18,000 = 153,000, or $153K (34%).
5. Band: 450,000 × 0.78 = 351,000 to 450,000 × 1.22 = 549,000, shown as $351K to $549K.
6. Cash you can spend this year: 153,000 + 18,000 = $171K. Equity is at least 45%, so the warning appears.

Holding Senior and SF / NYC fixed, the six tiers compare like this:

Assumptions and limits

• The sources differ in quality. Frontier labs rest on the Perspective 2026 FDE compensation report (about 1,200 respondents), Palantir on levels.fyi FDSE data ($171K to $295K, median near $211K), and the startup tiers on scattered reports. Wider spreads mark weaker data.
• Equity is annualized grant value. For a private company it is a forecast about a liquidity event, not money.
• The equity damp is a threshold. It applies to every market below 0.9, which includes US other as well as the non-US markets.
• Shares are fixed per tier. Quota, OTE and commission plans are not modeled, so a pre-sales-shaped role will not look like one here.
• It is a snapshot of the anchors and sources named above, not live data.

How to use the result

• Compare offers on the cash line first. In the table, the $190K defense package carries $10K more cash this year than the $450K frontier-lab package: $181K against $171K.
• Choose the tier before the level. A senior FDE at a vertical AI startup ($240K) earns less here than a mid-level FDE at a frontier lab ($324K).
• Ask the six questions. Variable pay, equity terms, travel in writing, customers at once, utilization in reviews and on-call after handoff change what a number means more than the number does.
• Prefer first-party ranges. Where pay transparency applies, the posting's own range beats every estimate on this page.

When to use it, and when not

Use it to get oriented before a recruiter call, to check whether an offer's shape is normal for its tier (a 62% equity share is typical of a frontier lab and strange at a defense integrator), or to see how much a move between tiers changes the cash you live on.

Do not use it to name a number in a negotiation, to value a specific company's private equity, or for a role paid on quota or OTE. For those, the posting's range, the full equity terms and people at that employer beat any multiplier model.

Trade-offs and limits

Three mechanics are worth knowing. The 75% cap on equity share never binds: the highest share any combination reaches is 0.62 × 1.08 = 0.6696. The level lift applies to every tier, so even a staff defense role moves from 5% to 5.4% equity. And the band is a fixed ± spread around the point, not a percentile range from data.

Common mistakes

• Comparing headline totals across equity types. $450K with 62% private equity and $260K with 30% public stock are different kinds of money. Compare cash lines, then judge the equity separately.
• Annualizing a grant wrongly. Annual equity is the grant divided by its vesting years: a $1M grant over four years is $250K a year. Setting a full grant beside someone else's annual figure inflates one offer fourfold.
• Reading the band as a confidence interval. ±22% is the model's judgment of source quality, not a range in which 90% of real offers fall.
• Assuming your employer uses these market factors. A US-other offer from an employer that does not adjust for location will sit near the SF figure, not at 0.85 of it.
• Mapping titles one to one. A senior title at a small startup may cover less scope than senior at a large lab. Pick the level by what you will own, using the description under each level.

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