When should you adopt the forward-deployed model?

The history of the forward-deployed engineer

The title of forward-deployed engineer comes from the military domain, in which forward-deployed means on the front lines. Forward-deployed engineers are on the front lines of technology; they are embedded in client's teams. Although they belong to the vendor's organization, they are fully allocated to one customer and focused fully on that customer. 

In the early 2000's, Palantir created the role in response to the difficulty of obtaining the requirements of its intelligence agency customers. Engineers were embedded with the client on-site to understand the client's workflows and to create custom designs using proof of concepts. This was called the gravel road to paved highway approach; a series of proof of concepts was built to create a custom, client-specific product. It is the opposite of SaaS development, where core products are designed and then configured and customized for individual clients.

Forward-deployed engineers vs. SaaS implementation teams

The approach of bringing experts onsite to manage the installation of vendor packages is not a new concept. SaaS integration teams -- either vendor-internal teams that designed and sold the software or platform, or external, third-party consultant integrators -- have been an integral part of implementations for many years. The size of these teams was often quite large, depending on the scope and complexity of the installation. They were comprised of delivery managers, software engineers, solution architects and various consultants. 

The forward-deployed engineer model differs from the SaaS implementation team approach in several significant ways. Most importantly, the forward-deployed engineer builds custom software based on the client's needs, whereas the SaaS teams install, configure and customize a core product. The forward-deployed engineer combines all team roles into a single expert. This expert has a role beyond installation and initial configuration.

The role of the forward-deployed engineer

The forward-deployed engineer is responsible for ensuring that the platform provides long-term value to the client. They must have expertise in a wide range of skills, sometimes disparate:

• They are highly technical engineers, but also consultants with a customer focus who can understand and empathize with their needs.
• They are the ultimate T-shaped tech professional; deep technical expertise -- the vertical pole -- combined with equally strong soft skills, domain expertise, integration and operations expertise, as well as creative design experience -- the horizontal line.
• They are responsible for the success of not only the implementation, but also for the system's value to the organization on an ongoing basis.

Specifically, the forward-deployed engineer's role includes the following responsibilities:

• Solution architect. The FDE must be able to elicit business needs, develop the technical requirements and create the technical design.
• Full-stack development engineer. The FDE must be able to code high-level prototypes as well as scalable, production-deployable platforms and products.
• Customer success manager. The FDE is responsible for the client's ongoing success with the product.

What are the requirements of the forward-deployed engineer role?

Candidates for the forward-deployed engineer role must have strong technical skills with equally strong communication, critical thinking and requirements elicitation skills. Candidates must demonstrate an intense customer focus to fully understand business needs and an ability to solve complex technical issues with elegant solutions. 

Forward-deployed engineers must have full-stack development experience as well as a deep understanding of operations, security and user experience. Startup founders are sought after as FDEs are highly skilled in all aspects of their business. They have a critical combination of technical skills, domain expertise and customer focus. Finally, they must be highly experienced in working with AI agents, LLMs and machine learning models to integrate them into legacy business applications. 

For anyone wishing to pursue a career as a forward-deployed engineer, it would be helpful to join a startup where you can gain experience across the various parts of the FDE role.

The increasing importance of the forward-deployed engineering model

In recent years, this model has gained traction among AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as tech startups, such as BugO and HoneyHive. 

These organizations find that by implementing the FDE model, they can mitigate many of the challenges brought on by the complexity of AI development. These challenges include:

• How AI transforms data.
• Managing bias in AI systems.
• Understanding how AI will affect business models and workflows.

With its intense focus on the client, the FDE model offers flexibility in implementing and scaling AI within highly customized, legacy systems.

Potential clients of the forward-deployed model are organizations that are interested in how AI can add value and reduce cost, but have a vague idea of their requirements. Usually, requirements are organization-specific. For example, embedding LLMs into legacy systems requires a deep understanding of systems workflows. These workflows are usually specific to the domain and the client's organization.

More recently, organizations, including Amazon and Microsoft, have found value in implementing the FDE model because it embeds ownership and accountability for the creation of business value from their software.

Does your organization need forward-deployed engineering?

Here are some questions to ask yourself in determining whether forward-deployed engineering is the right approach for your organization:

• Does your organization operate in the intelligence or security domain, in domains that require security clearances, or in a domain where data and code must be kept top secret? This indicates the need for highly experienced staff onsite at your location for the long term.
• Are your business workflows highly complex and your legacy systems highly customized? This indicates that you will need specialized customizations and technical expertise to manage the integration.
• Will your new software or platform require a high level of customization to meet your business requirements? Are your requirements unclear? If so, you'll need an expert who can quickly understand your business needs and translate them into requirements, then software.
• Will your organization require ongoing support to make changes in real time in response to changes in the industry or competitive climate? This indicates you will need a critical thinker with a high level of technical expertise to quickly address these changes.

If your answers are yes to any of these questions, the FDE model should be considered as you develop your tech stack strategy. 

In conclusion, the forward-deployed engineering model and the role of the forward-deployed engineer address issues in many of our current software development models because it focuses intently on the long-term success of the customer rather than the product. The forward-deployed engineer is entrusted with and accountable for that success. In this way, perhaps the most important responsibility of the forward-deployed engineer is accountability.

Gerie Owen is a QA engineering manager at Roobrik. She is a conference presenter and author on technology and testing topics, and a certified Scrum master.