Skip to content

Forward Deployed Engineering

I spent 7 years at Palantir as a Forward Deployed Engineer and hiring manager. The role is having a moment — Anthropic and OpenAI are pouring billions into it, founders are spinning up "FDE" titles before they've worked out what the role does — and most of what gets written about it is muddled.

This is my running attempt to pin it down. The essays below build on each other: what the role actually is, and the strategic fork AI has opened up.

The thesis

If LEGO Had Forward Deployed Engineers What actually separates an FDE from a really good consultant. The difference is the loop: FDEs build the tools that bootstrap themselves, and the best of those tools walk back to product. FDE work is product R&D dressed as delivery.

The FDE Fork: Platform or Outcomes AI made a second business model viable. You can productise the weird bricks and sell a platform (Path A, the Palantir-to-Foundry path), or keep the tooling internal and sell outcomes (Path B). Both are coherent. Founders who don't consciously pick one build a confused org with a confused FDE role.