A history of the forward deployed engineer
Guide
A forward deployed engineer (FDE) builds software inside a customer's team. The history of the forward deployed engineer starts with Palantir, which used the role to make complex software work for government and enterprise customers. AI then brought it to the big labs and cloud companies.
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The name
Borrowed from the military
"Forward deployed" is US military language for units based close to the action, not at headquarters. In engineering, it means the engineer works at the customer, not back at the home office.
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The history of the forward deployed engineer, in order
- 01
Palantir uses the title
Palantir used the forward deployed engineer title for its staff, deploying its software with government and commercial customers.
- 02
"Delta" inside Palantir
Inside Palantir the role was called Delta, set against Dev. Delta is "one customer, many capabilities". Dev is "one capability, many customers".
- 03
More FDEs than engineers
For a time, Palantir had more FDEs than regular software engineers.
- 04
OpenAI starts an FDE team
OpenAI set up its own forward deployed engineering team.
- 05
Postings take off
Lightcast data showed FDE job postings rising year over year.
- 06
The labs build services arms
Anthropic formed an AI services company with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman and Goldman Sachs. Days later OpenAI announced the OpenAI Deployment Co. Google Cloud said it would hire engineers to help customers adopt its AI.
- 07
The cloud giants follow
AWS set up a Forward Deployed Engineering unit, and Microsoft set up Microsoft Frontier Co., with staff embedded with clients.
Why AI revived the role
Generative AI products are easy to demo and hard to put into production. Every customer has different data, permissions and workflows. That is the exact problem Palantir built the FDE role to solve, which is why the labs and cloud companies copied it.
Not everyone sees it as new. Andreessen Horowitz called the title "title arbitrage", a way to signal importance for roles once called solutions engineers or integration engineers.
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- One agreement, one invoice
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FAQ
Questions people ask
Who invented the forward deployed engineer?
Palantir made it a standard job. It used the title early and called the role Delta inside the company.
Where does the name come from?
From US military jargon. Forward deployed units are based close to the action, and forward deployed engineers work at the customer.
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