Forward Deployed Engineer - Systems

The job

LIVE Employer public job feed (private-sector employer) Source: the employer's public careers feed · Data: listed 2025-09-23

Job description

About Us:
AI needs a new infrastructure layer. We're building it at Modal.

Every era of computing brought new workloads that previous infrastructure couldn't support: mainframes, databases, and the cloud. Each time, the company that rebuilt the layer underneath defined the decade. AI is no different, except it touches everything instead of one slice, and the window to build the layer underneath it is open right now.

Our customers include category-defining companies like Ramp, Cognition, DoorDash, and Suno. They rely on Modal for instant GPU access, sub-second container starts, and native storage, so it's simple to serve low-latency inference, fine-tune models, and access production-ready sandboxes at scale.

We've passed $1B in annualized run rate, up 15x from a year ago. In October 2026 we raised a $750M Series D led by Accel at a $15.75B valuation.

Our team includes creators of popular open-source projects (e.g.,Seaborn,Luigi), academic researchers, international olympiad medalists, and experienced engineering and product leaders with decades of experience.

The Role:

We’re looking for Forward Deployed Engineers on our engineering team who want to work at the intersection of deep infrastructure work and direct customer impact. As an FDE, you’ll partner with leading AI companies and foundation labs on cloud architecture, networking, storage, containerization, sandboxing, and more, helping them design and ship production infrastructure on Modal’s platform.

The FDE team today includes world-class software engineers, computational scientists, ML engineers, and former founders. We’re looking for people with strong engineering fundamentals, deep curiosity across the infrastructure stack, and energy for working directly with customers on hard problems.

What You’ll Work On:

• Work hands-on with companies like Suno, Lovable, Cognition, and Meta to architect and deploy massive-scale production workloads on Modal

• Lead technical discovery and architecture sessions with prospective and existing customers

• Architect migration paths from existing cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure) to Modal’s serverless platform

• Collaborate with Modal’s product and sales teams, contributing to the platform as both an engineer and a product stakeholder

• Build trusted relationships with technical leaders (CTOs, VPs of Engineering, ML leads) at companies doing frontier AI work

• Conduct technical demos, experiments, and proofs of concept that make Modal’s infrastructure advantages tangible

You May Be a Fit If:

• You have 3+ years of professional software engineering experience

• You have hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), including compute, storage, networking, and container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)

• You’re familiar with distributed systems architecture, data pipelines, and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation)

• You’re a strong communicator who can go deep on systems architecture with an infrastructure team and clearly articulate tradeoffs to technical leadership

• You have a genuine interest in working directly with customers: you find it energizing to understand someone else’s problem and help them solve it

• You’re willing to work in person in New York City, San Francisco, or Stockholm

Nice-to-Have:

• Experience leading large-scale migration efforts, open-source contributions, or side projects you’re proud of

Explore around this job

Field: Technology Sub-niche: Data, analytics and AI All jobs at Modal Jobs in New York Jobs in new york, NY New York city guide New York state guide Kings County economy

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About the role

This is a — role in the Technology field (Data, analytics and AI) at Modal.

We could not match this job title to one occupation in the official wage statistics, so no pay estimate is shown. Pay is not in the source listing; ask the employer for the range and compare in the 240 job niches.

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How to prepare and behave

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• Read the whole description and match your examples to its requirements; use the same words the posting uses where they are true for you.
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• Arrive early (or log in early for a video call), dress one step above the daily dress code, and test your camera and audio beforehand.
• Answer with short stories: the situation, what you did and the result. Give numbers when you have them and never invent them.
• Be honest about gaps; say what you did to learn and how fast you can close them.
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• Send a short thank-you message within a day, mentioning one thing you discussed.
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The city

The job is in new york, NY. Below is what the official statistics say about living and working there.

How New York compares. Among the 120 largest places in New York, New York is #1 by population, #117 for homeownership (#1 = highest), #115 for long commutes (#1 = fewest), #31 for remote work (#1 = most). Its county, Kings County, is #38 of 62 counties for average pay ($59,980).

The place in numbers

New York has 8,483,844 residents (ACS 2020–2024), about 42.7% of the population of New York. It covers 300 square miles of land, which works out to roughly 28,236 people per square mile. The median age is 38.2, 4% younger than the state median (38.2 against 39.8).

Housing

The median gross rent is $1,821 a month (rent plus utilities), 12% above the state median ($1,821 against $1,621). Over a year that is 27.2% of the median household income. US housing guidance treats housing as affordable when it takes 30% of income or less, so the typical household is under that line. The median home value is $777,600, which is 9.7 times the median household income ($80,483); a ratio above 5 usually means buying is out of reach without savings or a second income. 32.8% of households own their home, 40% below the state average (32.8% against 54.4%). A low ownership share points to a rental-heavy market with more apartments and shorter stays.

Work and pay

The New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ metropolitan area has 9,492,000 jobs in the BLS wage survey, and the median pay across all occupations is $61,430 a year, 20% above the national median ($61,430 against $50,980). The biggest occupation groups are office and administrative support (1,109,360 jobs, median $55,080); healthcare support (843,730 jobs, median $40,100); sales and related (751,110 jobs, median $47,540). The area is most specialised in healthcare support (1.8 times) and legal (1.7 times), where the share of workers is well above the national share. The best-paying groups with at least 5,000 jobs are management ($171,990) and legal ($150,990). In 2026M09 the unemployment rate of Kings County was 5.3%. 63.1% of residents aged 16 and over are in the labour force. The city lies in Kings County; its jobs, pay by industry and GDP are on the county page.

Getting around

Among workers, 21.6% drive alone, 44.0% use public transit, 9.2% walk, 16.9% work from home. 41.2% of workers commute 45 minutes or more, 50% above the state average (41.2% against 27.4%).

People and education

41.6% of adults aged 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher, 4% above the state share (41.6% against 40.2%). 36.6% of residents were born outside the United States, 61% above the state share (36.6% against 22.8%). The poverty rate is 17.9%, 28% above the state rate (17.9% against 14.0%).

Climate

The warmest month is Jul, averaging 75°F (23.7°C), and the coolest is Jan at 34°F (1.1°C). About 1,313 mm (52 inches) of precipitation falls in a year; Dec is the wettest month (133 mm) and Feb the driest (95 mm). These values come from NASA satellite-based climatology on a grid of about 50 km, so they describe the wider area, not a weather station in the city.

Nearby cities to compare

Closest cities in this guide: Hoboken (7 miles, rent 61% higher); Jersey City (7 miles, rent 10% higher); Union City (9 miles, rent 16% lower); Bayonne (9 miles, rent 8% lower). Rent differences are against New York; use the Compare tab to put any two cities side by side.

Full guide to New York →New York guideAll jobs in New York

Official links for New York

• Official website of New York: nyc.gov/main
• Census Bureau data profile for New York
• Official state website: ny.gov
• BLS Economy at a Glance: New York

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Where to live

The job city has no coordinates we can place on the map, so no housing comparison is shown. Use the 250 largest cities table to compare rent and income.

Career paths

We could not match this title to one occupation, so here are the other sub-niches in Technology, where your skills may carry over:

Cybersecurity (762) Software engineering (4641) Cloud, IT and infrastructure (1147) Product management (927)

Distances

This job has no single city we can place on the map (remote, flexible or unmatched location), so no distance table is shown. Browse all Technology jobs with distances from any of the 20 largest cities.

The employer

Modal is the employer in this listing. See all its open jobs here →

We do not hold headcount or revenue for this employer. Check its careers site and, if it is listed on a stock exchange, its public filings (SEC EDGAR search).

What it is like to work at a company (culture, schedules, benefits) is not in the source data, so we do not describe it. Read the description and ask the questions under "How to prepare".

Other open jobs at Modal

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Same sub-niche: Data, analytics and AI

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FAQ

What is the Forward Deployed Engineer - Systems job at Modal?

A private-sector role in technology (data, analytics and ai) listed 412 days ago. The full description is on this page and on the employer's page.

Where is this job?

new york, NY.

How do I apply?

Use the "View this job and apply on the employer's page" button. AtiveSite does not receive applications.

How much does it pay?

The listing does not publish pay, and we could not match the title to one official occupation.

What is the cost of living there?

Median rent in New York is $1,821 a month and median household income $80,483 (ACS 2020–2024).

How old is this listing?

It was posted on 2025-09-23 (412 days ago). Jobs older than 90 days are not shown.

Are there similar jobs?

Yes: browse data, analytics and ai jobs in New York.

Sources and terms

• Job data: Modal careers page public feed (listing dated 2025-09-23). The job disappears from this site when it disappears from the source.
• Wages and projections: BLS OEWS (May 2025) and Employment Projections 2025–35.
• City and county figures: Census Bureau ACS 2020–2024, BEA, BLS QCEW and LAUS, NASA POWER climatology; distances from Census Gazetteer coordinates.

AtiveSite is not affiliated with or endorsed by the employer or any government agency, and does not process applications. Verify every detail with the employer before acting.

Sources

• BLS OEWS (wages and employment by occupation, May 2025)
• BLS Employment Projections 2025–35
• BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics
• BLS JOLTS
• BLS State and Metro Area Employment
• Census Bureau American Community Survey (via Census Reporter)
• BEA GDP by state and Regional Price Parities
• IRS 2026 tax adjustments
• U.S. Department of Labor, minimum wage by state
• Tax Foundation state income tax rates 2026
• USAJOBS
• USCIS
• U.S. Department of State, visas
• NASA POWER climatology
• GeoNames / Census Gazetteer (coordinates)