Forward-deployed engineers (FDEs) are emerging as one of the most important roles in modern software companies. As AI accelerates product complexity and customer expectations rise, organizations are realizing that even the most powerful products fall short when customers cannot bridge the gap between potential and real-world adoption. A new class of hybrid engineers is stepping in to close that gap, turning sophisticated technology into meaningful outcomes far more consistently than traditional delivery models.
What Is a Forward-Deployed Engineer?
A forward-deployed engineer (FDE) is a hybrid technical role that bridges the gap between sophisticated technology and real-world customer adoption.
Key characteristics include:
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Embedded Collaboration: They work side-by-side with customers and sales teams to identify real-world problems and scope technical feasibility before and during implementation.
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Outcome-Focused Building: Unlike traditional delivery teams, they are empowered to build integrations, customizations, and workflows — often before standard product features exist — to ensure the customer reaches a time-to-impact faster.
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Connective Tissue: They act as a feedback loop between the customer and the internal product/engineering teams, translating customer needs into reusable product improvements and platform capabilities.
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Strategic Problem Solving: They focus on higher-order work, such as discovery, judgment and problem framing, ensuring that complex software, particularly AI-driven tools, translates into meaningful business results.
The Engineering Role Reshaping Enterprise Delivery
The growth of the FDE role begins with a simple observation. Customers who work directly with builders reach impact faster. Below are three examples of how companies have deployed FDEs to quickly roll out solutions to better meet the needs of their customers.
Intercom discovered this during the rollout of Fin, its AI customer service agent. When customers collaborated directly with Intercom’s engineering and product teams, they made faster decisions, navigated complexity with more confidence and activated high-value use cases sooner. That experience led Intercom to formalize a forward-deployed function anchored in deep technical expertise and tight collaboration with strategic accounts.
Lorikeet, an AI support startup, embedded the FDE mindset from its earliest days. The founders spent six months working side-by-side with their first customer, iterating on real workflows instead of theoretical ones. That proximity didn’t just accelerate product maturity. It became the company’s operating philosophy. Every customer became a source of discovery, and every successful configuration or experiment became input for what the product should evolve toward.
Rippling arrived at the same conclusion but from a different starting point. With more than 60 interconnected products and deeply technical workflows, the company often sells complex automation to nontechnical buyers. Customers cannot self-implement such systems without engineering guidance. So, Rippling created a forward-deployed motion capable of building what the customer needs even when workflows don’t yet exist. FDEs became the connective tissue between customer expectations and product realities.
FDE vs. Traditional Software Teams
This breadth is what differentiates the FDE role from traditional delivery or onboarding teams. FDEs translate between customer intent and technical feasibility. They identify the real problem behind the stated problem and quantify its size. They frame experiments, test assumptions, validate patterns and bring those insights back into engineering and product. Their closeness to real usage and system constraints creates a feedback loop that shortens the distance between discovery, solutions and product improvement.
The involvement of one or more FDEs begins well before the implementation phase. FDEs work with sales teams to scope technical feasibility and identify where customized work or tailored integrations may be required.
For example, an AI support company — let’s call it Acme — could be engaged with an enterprise seeking to reduce support costs by increasing automated support and reducing more costly human support. Acme FDEs would analyze the support tickets going to humans to determine how to optimize automation, hypothesizing what integrations and customizations would help unlock the largest value. Then the FDEs would test the potential solutions and build out the necessary integrations, customizations, etc. to deliver the planned outcomes.
During delivery, FDEs stay embedded in the engagement, preventing context from getting lost in handoffs. After rollout, they continue refining workflows, identifying repeatable patterns and distinguishing one-off requirements from emerging product opportunities. This continuity reduces friction, strengthens alignment and accelerates time-to-impact.
For example, an Acme FDE may recognize that a missing integration or API is blocking a high-value customer use case. Rather than treating it as a one-off request, the FDE approaches the problem with a product mindset: evaluating how the capability could be used across customers, how it should evolve over time and how it fits within the broader platform. Trusted to act, FDEs are empowered to build and expose new capabilities the right way, accelerating customer outcomes without slowing delivery through unnecessary approvals.
You Win or Lose Between Innovation and Adoption
Embedding engineers in customer-facing roles comes with challenges. Without clear principles, teams risk drifting into custom work that becomes difficult to maintain. The companies succeeding with this model emphasize discipline. They apply engineering rigor even when writing field-built code. They document configurations, lessons and experiments so they can share patterns. They decline work that falls outside the product vision. They elevate reusable work into templates, frameworks and product/platform capabilities.
Across these organizations, one theme arises repeatedly. FDEs embody what modern delivery should look like. They focus on outcomes rather than output. They are empowered to make choices and build out solutions without needing to wait for approvals from one or more executives — approvals that only delay the process. They create learning loops that strengthen both the customer relationship and the product. In an era where enterprise customers expect fast ROI, this mindset is becoming a strategic differentiator.
For example, FDEs can build out solutions immediately, enabling the customer to enhance the enterprise’s automation capabilities, reducing costs as soon a new capability is implemented, rather than awaiting approval from one or more executives who may not be available for some time (the more approvals, the more time), delaying the ROI.
The business case is clear. Some companies structure FDE teams as revenue-generating units through paid engagements or scoped solution work. Others use the role to drive adoption, usage depth and product consumption, particularly in sophisticated or multi-product deployments. In both models, the work pays for itself and compounds over time because each engagement improves the product and accelerates future delivery.
The Future of the FDE
AI is beginning to reshape the FDE’s role, but not replace it. Automating tasks such as integration mapping, configuration generation and early diagnostics frees FDEs to focus on higher-order work. But core responsibilities — discovery, judgment, problem framing and navigating organizational nuance — remain distinctly human. AI amplifies the role; it does not diminish its importance.
Forward-deployed engineers represent a broader shift in how complex software is adopted. They bring builders closer to customers. They reduce the space between what is promised and what is delivered. They help products evolve based on real-world use rather than hypothetical scenarios. As enterprise environments grow more interconnected and AI-driven, the companies that invest in this role early will gain a meaningful advantage.
