Glossary
Forward-deployed engineer (FDE)
What is a forward-deployed engineer?
A forward-deployed engineer (FDE) is an engineer who embeds with a customer’s team, learns how the work actually gets done, and builds and deploys software inside that team’s real workflows. Palantir pioneered the role.
Also called: FDE, Forward-deployed software engineer, FDSE
Why it matters
FDEs are how many AI deployments reach production, but they are scarce and expensive, and each one covers only a few teams at a time.
Example
An FDE spends four weeks mapping a finance team’s invoice process before building an agent that handles the routine matches.
Learn more
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