Forward deployed engineer
Customer-facing software engineering role
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A forward-deployed engineer (FDE), also called a forward-deployed software engineer (FDSE), is a customer-facing software engineer who develops and deploys software within a client company, often working alongside the client's employees for a defined period of time.[1][2]
The responsibilities of forward-deployed engineers overlap with those of solutions architects, sales engineers, customer engineers, professional services engineers, systems integrators, and information technology consultants.[1][2] For example, a company may embed a forward-deployed engineer with a customer for a few months to help them use an AI product sold by the company.[3]
The role was popularized by Palantir Technologies.[3] Companies including Amazon Web Services, OpenAI, and Anthropic have also hired people under this job title.[4] Companies listed significantly more job openings for this role between 2024 and 2025, but some software engineers consider the role to be undesirable because of the travel requirements and pressure to solve customer problems within relatively short amounts of time.[5]
