AI wave gives rise to a new profession: Forward Deployed Engineer

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On Thursday, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian posted a job listing calling for "Forward Deployed Engineers" to join the company's AI go-to-market team. Their mission: help non-tech companies scale up their AI deployments.

The term "Forward Deployed Engineer" (FDE) has been coming up frequently in conversations with CTOs, software engineers, and technology and job market experts.

Google currently has 1,513 openings for this specific role, while OpenAI, which just launched its "Deployment Company" organization this week, has 31 vacancies. Microsoft has joined the ranks as well; in March, Microsoft launched a forward deployed partnership with Accenture.

OpenAI's new Deployment Company aims to "help organizations build and deploy reliable AI systems that they can use every day in their most important work," the company said in a blog post.

A study released by LinkedIn earlier this year showed that forward deployed engineering is the fastest-growing job created by AI, with the number of positions growing 42-fold between 2023 and 2025. (By comparison, AI engineer positions grew 13-fold over the same period.)

Jack Gold, chief analyst at J.Gold Associates, said vendors and service providers are creating FDE positions to help customers install AI.

Many non-tech companies have tried to deploy AI projects in-house but failed to succeed or quickly achieve a return on investment. These efforts have failed due to a lack of vision, talent shortages, insufficient budgets, and underestimating the complexity of deploying AI.

This led to the emergence of the FDE — essentially a hired expert in AI deployment. They focus on delivering successful outcomes for customers rather than writing code.

"They have skills that organizations may not possess, and they've often done similar work with other companies before, so they bring the expertise the company needs," Gold said.

FDEs analyze strategy, develop battle plans, identify use cases, build agent frameworks, and roll out AI systems with the help of the customer's own domain experts and engineers. They also work with AI models, resolve context and reasoning issues, run evals, and establish safety and governance guardrails.

Gold said a good FDE can greatly increase the probability of a successful implementation.

Many software engineers have worried that AI would make their profession obsolete. But analysts and IT experts say the FDE role reflects where the profession is headed.

Alex Spinelli, senior vice president of AI and developer platforms at Arm, said code can now be written in human language, which allows software engineers to focus more on outcomes rather than serving code.

"I think engineering is moving in this direction... blending more technical product management thinking, design thinking, and architectural thinking," Spinelli said.

Stephen Jones, an NVIDIA CUDA architect, said that while AI can make engineering invisible, it also opens up a toolbox for solving business problems. "You have more tools than ever to solve problems that were previously completely unsolvable," he said.

Deepak Seth, distinguished senior director analyst at Gartner, said the responsibilities of FDEs in the future will likely include lowering AI costs for customers. "Some companies are moving toward outcome-based pricing... when people start realizing the true cost of tokens, companies will start focusing on token efficiency."

Gold said the implementation work of FDEs can help drive token savings. "If the implementation is optimized, it can save the token costs of processing workflows... especially as companies move toward agents," he said.

Q&A

Q1: What is a Forward Deployed Engineer? What is their main job?

A: A Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) is a professional who specializes in helping enterprises deploy AI systems. Their main work includes analyzing strategy, developing implementation plans, identifying use cases, building agent frameworks, and rolling out AI systems in collaboration with the customer's domain experts. They focus on delivering successful outcomes for customers rather than just writing code.

Q2: How fast is the Forward Deployed Engineer role growing?

A: According to a study released by LinkedIn earlier this year, forward deployed engineering is the fastest-growing job created by AI, with the number of positions growing 42-fold between 2023 and 2025. By comparison, AI engineer positions grew 13-fold over the same period. Google currently has 1,513 related openings, and OpenAI has 31.

Q3: Why do companies need Forward Deployed Engineers?

A: Many non-tech companies have struggled to deploy AI projects in-house, failing to succeed or quickly achieve a return on investment. Reasons for failure include a lack of vision, talent shortages, insufficient budgets, and underestimating the complexity of deploying AI. Forward Deployed Engineers have the specialized skills and experience that enterprises may lack, and can greatly increase the probability of successful AI implementation.