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Forward deployed engineer demand

Market news

A forward deployed engineer (FDE) builds software inside a customer's team. Forward deployed engineer demand has grown as AI companies try to get their products into real use. Here is what we could source.

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Forward deployed engineer demand: the big announcements

  • AWS A Forward Deployed Engineering unit that embeds pods of engineers with a customer at a time.
  • Microsoft Frontier Co. A unit with staff embedded with clients.
  • Anthropic and OpenAI services arms Anthropic with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman and Goldman Sachs, then the OpenAI Deployment Co. days later.
  • Google Cloud Plans to hire engineers to help customers adopt its AI.

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Where the jobs are

In the US, New York City has more FDE postings than San Francisco. Palantir and the AI labs are the best-known employers, but many other companies hire FDEs too.

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Related FDE guides

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  • Every requirement read by us
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  • One agreement, one invoice

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FAQ

Questions people ask

Is demand for forward deployed engineers growing?

Yes. Lightcast data showed FDE postings rising year over year, and the largest cloud companies have set up FDE units.

Will FDE demand last?

Nobody can say for sure. The underlying need, getting complex AI systems into production at each customer, is not going away soon, but titles change. Watch the work, not the label.

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