MongoDB

Lead Forward Deployed Engineer

MongoDB 📍 California, USA 🏢 On-site Posted Aug 12, 2026 via MongoDB careers
full-time 📂 Software Development 🏢 On-site 🏭 Technology

✨ Job Highlights

  • ★Pay: $168,000 to $330,000 a year
  • ★On-site: New York or California
  • ★Full-time role in software development
  • ★Experience asked for: 10+ years
  • ★Apply directly on MongoDB's careers site
  • ★Posted August 12, 2026

Full Job Description

Lead Forward Deployed Engineer job at MongoDB in New York

MongoDB is hiring a Lead Forward Deployed Engineer in New York or California. The job is full-time and office based. Pay for this role is set at $168,000 to $330,000 a year, according to the posting.

MongoDB describes the job as follows.

Lead Forward Deployed Engineers (FDE) are the most senior technical leaders in the FDE organization. They own the overall technical strategy for the FDE domain, not just individual engagements, and are accountable for how the entire function operates, scales, and improves over time. They set direction across multiple concurrent engagements, teams, and quarters, and are the technical voice the organization relies on when stakes, ambiguity, or cross-functional complexity are highest. This role sits at the intersection of technical depth, organizational strategy, and people leadership, setting the technical bar for the function, shaping how Product and Engineering prioritize based on field reality, and developing the next generation of Staff-level FDEs.

We are looking to speak to candidates who are based in New York City for our hybrid working model.

Responsibilities

  • Own the FDE organization's overall engagement strategy, serving as the primary technical escalation point across the portfolio for the highest-risk, highest-visibility, and most ambiguous situations
  • Act as the trusted technical counterpart to customer executives and internal VP/executive stakeholders on strategic bets, major risks, and cross-portfolio tradeoffs
  • Set the technical architecture standards and design principles that govern how the FDE domain builds customer-facing solutions and platform capabilities, turning organization-level ambiguity into coherent multi-quarter technical strategy
  • Stay hands-on where it matters most, writing and reviewing code and personally unblocking the hardest technical failures to keep the organization's technical bar grounded in reality
  • Own the translation of field-wide patterns into the FDE domain's long-term technical vision, representing that vision to Product and Engineering executive leadership and defending multi-quarter roadmap tradeoffs
  • Own the technical growth and career development of FDEs through mentorship, coaching, and calibration of the org's technical bar, and play a lead role in hiring and leveling decisions
  • Serve as the final point of technical judgment when the team is deadlocked, and represent the FDE function in executive and cross-org planning forums
  • Qualifications

  • 10+ years of relevant engineering experience, including a demonstrated track record of hands-on technical leadership in production systems and complex enterprise environments
  • Demonstrated success setting technical strategy and direction at an organizational level, shaping how an entire function operates rather than leading initiatives within a single team
  • Proven experience designing and directing production-grade integrations, platforms, or distributed systems across multiple concurrent engagements or teams
  • Excellent technical judgment under high ambiguity, with a track record of making and being accountable for organization-level tradeoffs between customer impact, speed, maintainability, and risk
  • Demonstrated ability to influence and align VP/executive-level stakeholders, internally and at customer organizations, on strategic technical direction
  • Track record of developing senior and staff-level engineers through mentorship, coaching, and technical calibration, with willingness to travel up to 30% for executive engagements and technical reviews
  • Preferred: experience setting technical strategy for LLM, agent framework, retrieval, evaluation, or production AI systems at an organizational level, prior experience as a Staff-level FDE, and experience contributing to hiring bar-raising or leveling frameworks at organizational scale
  • About MongoDB

    MongoDB is built for change, empowering our customers and our people to innovate at the speed of the market. We have redefined the data platform for the AI era, enabling builders to create, transform, and disrupt industries with software. MongoDB's unified data platform, the most widely available, globally distributed data platform on the market, helps organizations modernize legacy workloads, embrace innovation, and unleash AI. Our cloud-native platform, MongoDB Atlas, is the only globally distributed, multi-cloud data platform and is available across AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

    With offices worldwide and over 67,000 customers, including 75% of the Fortune 100 and AI-native startups, relying on MongoDB for their most important applications, we're powering the next era of software.

    Our compass at MongoDB is our Leadership Commitment, guiding how and why we make decisions, show up for each other, and win. It's what makes us MongoDB.

    To drive the personal growth and business impact of our employees, we're committed to developing a supportive and enriching culture for everyone. From employee affinity groups, to fertility assistance and a generous parental leave policy, we value our employees' wellbeing and want to support them along every step of their professional and personal journeys. Learn more about what it's like to work at MongoDB, and help us make an impact on the world!

    MongoDB is committed to providing any necessary accommodations for individuals with disabilities within our application and interview process. To request an accommodation due to a disability, please inform your recruiter.

    MongoDB, Inc. provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type and makes all hiring decisions without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

    REQ ID: 2273494817

    MongoDB’s base salary range for this role is posted below. Compensation at the time of offer is unique to each candidate and based on a variety of factors such as skill set, experience, qualifications, and work location. Salary is one part of MongoDB’s total compensation and benefits package. Other benefits for eligible employees may include: equity, participation in the employee stock purchase program, flexible paid time off, 20 weeks fully-paid gender-neutral parental leave, fertility and adoption assistance, 401(k) plan, mental health counseling, access to transgender-inclusive health insurance coverage, and health benefits offerings. Please note, the base salary range listed below and the benefits in this paragraph are only applicable to U.S.-based candidates.

    MongoDB’s base salary range for this role in the U.S. is: $168,000 to $330,000 USD

    Common questions

    What is the salary for the Lead Forward Deployed Engineer role at MongoDB?

    MongoDB advertises $168,000 to $330,000 a year for this role.

    Is the Lead Forward Deployed Engineer position remote?

    No, it is an on-site job in New York or California.

    What experience do I need for this Lead Forward Deployed Engineer job?

    The posting mentions at least 10 years of relevant experience and skills such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and MongoDB. Read the full description above for the complete list.

    How do I apply for the Lead Forward Deployed Engineer job?

    Use the apply button on this page. It takes you to MongoDB's own application form, so your CV goes directly to their hiring team.

    When was this job posted?

    MongoDB published the role on August 12, 2026. We check the employer's job board every day and take this page down when the role closes, so if you can read it, the job was still listed at our last check.

    Source: MongoDB careers page (www.mongodb.com). Applications go straight to the employer. We check the listing daily and remove it once it closes.

    Required Skills

    AWS Azure Google Cloud MongoDB

    🏢 About MongoDB

    MongoDB is the next-generation database that helps businesses transform their industries by harnessing the power of data. The world’s most sophisticated organizations, from cutting-edge startups to the largest companies, use MongoDB to create applications never before possible at a fraction of the cost of legacy databases. MongoDB is the fastest-growing database ecosystem, with over 9 million downloads, thousands of customers, and over 750 technology and service partners. Learn more at www.mongodb.com.

    Industry: Technology

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    $168,000 - $330,000 / yearly

    Yearly salary

    Apply on Company Site ↗
    🏢 Company MongoDB
    📍 Location California, USA
    💼 Job Type full-time
    🌐 Work Mode 🏢 On-site
    🏭 Industry Technology
    🗓 Posted Date Aug 12, 2026
    🔗 Via MongoDB careers
    🎯 Experience 10+ years
    📅 Deadline Dec 14, 2034

    About the Company

    MongoDB is the next-generation database that helps businesses transform their industries by harnessing the power of data. The world’s most…

    View Company →