Artificial intelligence (AI) startups such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere are stepping up their recruitment of a rare breed of software developer: the Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE). These software engineers must not only be able to write code, but also, when stationed inside enterprise client organizations, communicate with customers and help them customize models, accelerating AI adoption to generate more revenue.

According to the Financial Times (FT), OpenAI formed an FDE team early this year and expects to expand it to about 50 engineers by the end of the year. Anthropic also said it will grow its Applied AI team, which includes FDEs and product engineers, fivefold this year to meet customer demand. Data from job platform Indeed show that these AI roles, which require face-to-face interaction with customers, have skyrocketed this year, with the number of FDE job postings published each month from January to September surging more than 800%.

This talent trend has emerged because, although industries from manufacturing to healthcare are increasingly eager to adopt AI tools, they are often unsure how to apply the technology or how to profit from the investment.

Jon, head of Anthropic's Applied AI team, said: "A Fortune 500 bank and a startup building AI-native products have completely different needs."

Preetham, Palantir's UK AI lead at the data intelligence giant, described the approach as "discovering the product from within." "You want the things you build to make customers say, when you present them in a briefing, 'this is going to be a game changer,'" he said. Forward Deployed Engineers know that "valuable software is not about how elegant the code or language is... it's about what matters to the end customer."

Palantir began recruiting this kind of talent about 20 years ago, drawing on the concept of military personnel stationed overseas. Today, FDEs make up roughly half of its employees and have been deployed to military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, factories in the US Midwest, and oil refineries. AI startups now hope to emulate Palantir. Cohere co-founder and CEO Gomez said deploying engineers from the moment a customer signs a contract helps build long-lasting, ongoing relationships.

Although FDEs still make up a relatively small share of AI companies' workforces, OpenAI said demand for the role has exceeded its expectations. Fournier, who leads OpenAI's FDE team for Europe and the Middle East, said: "This has taught us what customers in different industries really need, and helped us improve our research and product lineup based on real-world operations."