What is Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)?

A customer-facing software engineer who builds and deploys software inside a client's own operational environment rather than from a vendor's office. The model was popularised by Palantir and has since been adopted by OpenAI, Anthropic and others; AWS announced a $1 billion investment in a dedicated forward-deployed-engineer organisation in June 2026. The distinguishing feature is not seniority but where accountability stops: the engagement ends when the client's team can run the system unaided.