This role pays more than
50%
of similar roles. Most pay
$150,499–$216,656
— the shaded band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$177k
versus about
$184k
for comparable roles.
Based on 240 similar postings.
Employer
About Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is a global technology leader producing software, hardware, and cloud services including Windows, Office 365, Azure cloud platform, Xbox gaming, and Surface devices. Industry: Software & Cloud Computing
Microsoft currently has
633 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$119,800–$234,700
across 621 roles with salary data.
Senior Forward Deployed Engineer
The Senior Forward Deployed Engineer joins the Windows Platform and Developers team as a founding member to drive adoption of agentic workloads on Windows. This role involves embedding with strategic partners to identify technical blockers, design solutions, and build production-ready automation, configurations, and reference implementations within customer environments. The engineer will address challenges involving coding agents, local inference, and AI-native development loops while ensuring high standards for security and maintainability. Key responsibilities include diagnosing platform friction, creating scalable playbooks from custom solutions, and providing technical evidence to product teams to influence the Windows roadmap. Candidates should possess experience in C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python, with preferred expertise in LLM-powered systems, WSL, containers, and virtualization. The role focuses on solving complex integration issues where developer tools and agentic workflows intersect with enterprise-scale infrastructure.
What does a Forward Deployed Engineer earn?
Median $201250 from 49 postings across 23 companies.
Embed with customer engineering teams to identify technical blockers and define success measures for Windows adoption.
Design and implement production-ready solutions including automation, configuration logic, and reference implementations within customer environments.
Diagnose and resolve performance or reliability issues in developer tools, infrastructure, and agentic workloads.
Provide expert guidance on the Windows developer platform, including WSL, containers, and enterprise security policies.
Translate recurring customer problems into scalable playbooks, tooling, and documentation for broader internal use.
Advocate for product changes by providing evidence-based feedback to internal engineering teams to drive feature improvements.
Build and maintain technical relationships with customer leaders to ensure successful migration of workloads to Windows.
What we're looking for
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field and 4+ years of engineering experience in languages like C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python.
Equivalent experience to a degree and 4+ years of coding experience is acceptable.
Ability to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check.
Production experience building or deploying systems powered by large language models (LLMs) (preferred).
Solid programming ability in Python and at least one of TypeScript, C#, Rust, Go, C, or C++ with a record of shipping production software (preferred).
Experience in a customer-facing engineering role such as forward deployed engineering, field engineering, technical consulting, or solutions architecture (preferred).
Technical knowledge of the Windows developer platform, including WSL, containers, virtualization, and hardware acceleration (preferred).
Experience diagnosing performance and reliability problems using telemetry, traces, profiling, or Windows Performance Analyzer (preferred).
C#
C++
TypeScript
WinUI
WebView2
Windows OS APIs
COM
WinRT
NT Services
Microsoft Entra ID
MSAL
WAM
RDP
VDI
Python
Java
JavaScript
Telemetry-driven development