A new, highly specialized job is rapidly emerging in the technology sector as artificial intelligence companies race to make their complex tools useful for everyday businesses. Called the 'Forward-Deployed Engineer,' this role combines deep technical skill with strong customer communication, and job listings for the position have surged by more than 800% this year.
Leading AI firms like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere are aggressively hiring these specialists. Their mission is to work directly inside client companies, helping them customize and implement advanced AI models to solve real-world problems and generate tangible returns on investment.
Key Takeaways
- A new role, the Forward-Deployed Engineer (FDE), is in high demand at major AI companies.
- Job listings for customer-facing AI roles, including FDEs, grew by over 800% between January and September 2025.
- FDEs possess a hybrid skillset, combining advanced software engineering with client-facing communication abilities.
- Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are significantly expanding their FDE teams to meet customer demand and drive revenue.
- The role involves embedding engineers within client organizations to build custom AI solutions on-site.
A Surge in Demand for a New Kind of Engineer
The artificial intelligence industry is facing a critical challenge: while its technology is more powerful than ever, many businesses struggle to adapt it effectively. To solve this, AI developers are creating teams of specialists who can act as a bridge between the lab and the corporate world.
This has led to the rise of the Forward-Deployed Engineer. According to data from the jobs platform Indeed, monthly job postings for these roles have skyrocketed, increasing by more than 800% in the first nine months of 2025. This explosive growth reflects a strategic shift in the AI sector toward hands-on customer integration.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, established its FDE team at the beginning of 2025 and is already planning a significant expansion. Arnaud Fournier, who leads the FDE division in Europe and the Middle East, stated that the company expects to grow the team to approximately 50 engineers next year. Similarly, rival AI lab Anthropic announced plans to increase its applied AI team, which includes FDEs, fivefold this year to keep up with intense customer demand.
What is a Forward-Deployed Engineer?
The term 'forward-deployed' has military origins, referring to personnel placed directly in an area of operation. In the tech world, an FDE is an engineer who works on-site with a customer, rather than at a corporate headquarters. Their job is to understand the client's unique challenges and build custom software solutions using the parent company's technology platform. This requires both elite coding skills and the ability to manage client relationships.
Solving the AI Implementation Puzzle
Many businesses across sectors like manufacturing, finance, and healthcare are eager to adopt AI but often lack the in-house expertise to do so successfully. They may invest in powerful AI models but fail to see a clear return on that investment. FDEs are designed to close this gap.
“A Fortune 500 bank has completely different needs than a start-up building an AI-native product,” explained Cat de Jong, head of applied AI at Anthropic. This highlights the need for tailored solutions rather than one-size-fits-all products.
By embedding engineers directly within a client's operations, AI companies gain invaluable insight into practical business needs. This hands-on approach allows them to build tools that are genuinely useful, not just technologically impressive. Nic Prettejohn, head of AI in the UK at data intelligence firm Palantir, described the strategy as “product discovery from the inside.”
Pioneered by Palantir
While new to many generative AI startups, the FDE model was pioneered by Palantir nearly two decades ago. The company has successfully used this strategy to deploy its data analysis software in diverse and challenging environments, from factory floors in the American Midwest to military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, FDEs reportedly make up about half of Palantir's entire workforce.
Palantir often deploys its engineers in pairs, internally nicknamed “Echo” and “Delta.” The 'Echo' team member focuses on understanding the customer's problem, while the 'Delta' uses their technical expertise to build the solution.
This long-standing success is now being emulated by the new wave of AI leaders. Aidan Gomez, co-founder and CEO of Cohere, emphasized that placing engineers with customers from the beginning of a contract helps forge strong, lasting relationships. “We embed engineers at the start of work to ensure customers get exactly what they need and scale back once companies are up and running,” Gomez said.
Real-World Impact and Future Growth
The forward-deployed model is already delivering measurable results. OpenAI, for example, collaborated with agricultural machinery manufacturer John Deere. By embedding its engineers, OpenAI helped the company develop more precise farming tools powered by AI.
The result was a significant operational improvement for farmers, who were able to reduce their use of chemical sprays by 60% to 70%. This case study demonstrates how customized AI applications can create real economic and environmental value.
This feedback loop is a core benefit of the FDE strategy. As engineers work on practical problems, they uncover new challenges and opportunities that can inform future research and development back at headquarters.
“We learn what customers in different industries really need, we experiment and innovate together, and then those insights help advance OpenAI’s research and product offerings based on what works in the real world,” said OpenAI's Fournier.
While FDEs still represent a small fraction of the total workforce at these large AI companies, the demand for their unique blend of skills is far exceeding expectations. As more businesses seek to integrate AI into their core operations, the role of the engineer who can code, communicate, and solve problems on the front lines is set to become even more critical.