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What are Forward Deployed Engineers, and why are they so in demand? (2025)

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Re: What are Forward Deployed Engineers, and why are they so in demand? (2025)

#41

Post by stingraycharles »

Schiendelman wrote: post #22
poemxo wrote: post #14

I'm swimming against the current with this, but I think the role is really cool. Blessed by your own company to wear the vestments of an expert, and expected by the customer to deliver the sort of advice that will get a team "unstuck", a forward deployed engineer is in the perfect spot to prove just how much of a hotshot he or she is. Especially in fields like defense where the customer is staffed with teams that are…

This job is really the stepping stone to product management - and it's the role that's going to really grow with LLMs. A mini-PM with Fable can solve tons of customer needs. Edit: I guess I'm not surprised to see the downvotes on this; I get that a lot of people on HN don't really understand product management, or don't value it. The path from engineering to product management can really start with getting closer to…

LLMs don't really have anything to do with this, other than LLMs being useful for pretty much any (tech) role.

Re: What are Forward Deployed Engineers, and why are they so in demand? (2025)

#42

Post by paxys »

Schiendelman wrote: post #22
poemxo wrote: post #14

I'm swimming against the current with this, but I think the role is really cool. Blessed by your own company to wear the vestments of an expert, and expected by the customer to deliver the sort of advice that will get a team "unstuck", a forward deployed engineer is in the perfect spot to prove just how much of a hotshot he or she is. Especially in fields like defense where the customer is staffed with teams that are…

This job is really the stepping stone to product management - and it's the role that's going to really grow with LLMs. A mini-PM with Fable can solve tons of customer needs. Edit: I guess I'm not surprised to see the downvotes on this; I get that a lot of people on HN don't really understand product management, or don't value it. The path from engineering to product management can really start with getting closer to…

If fable can solve the customer’s needs then why is the PM needed at all?

Re: What are Forward Deployed Engineers, and why are they so in demand? (2025)

#43

Post by colechristensen »

lolinder wrote: post #31
superfrank wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the idea is cool, but from what I've heard from people in the role at most companies it's essentially a solutions architect role by another name. Funny enough, the Pragmatic Engineer (author of the post linked) had a follow up from about a year after the post above and he reports the same thing. https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/the-pulse-forward-deploye...

Looking at the official description of a Forward Deployed Engineer I'm uncertain what even the nominal difference between this and a Solutions Architect is. Is the nominal difference between an archetypal FDE and an archetypal SA greater than the difference in the SA role from company to company?

It's looking like the answer is no. They're the same within the bounds of ordinary differences in the role between companies.

Re: What are Forward Deployed Engineers, and why are they so in demand? (2025)

#44

Post by oooyay »

Palantir is also the kind of business where every engagement is somewhat to totally bespoke. That's a big departure from a more typical SaaS model where you focus on providing a platform that your customers build on top of with a more generic set of tools.

I am curious whether this FDE direction will result in more product and platform complexity that is more difficult to unwind.

Re: What are Forward Deployed Engineers, and why are they so in demand? (2025)

#47

Post by procarch2019 »

lolinder wrote: post #31
superfrank wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the idea is cool, but from what I've heard from people in the role at most companies it's essentially a solutions architect role by another name. Funny enough, the Pragmatic Engineer (author of the post linked) had a follow up from about a year after the post above and he reports the same thing. https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/the-pulse-forward-deploye...

Looking at the official description of a Forward Deployed Engineer I'm uncertain what even the nominal difference between this and a Solutions Architect is. Is the nominal difference between an archetypal FDE and an archetypal SA greater than the difference in the SA role from company to company?

I think it is. I work for a (relatively) small company. I naturally grew from project engineer to senior/lead/sme (including pioneering tech _for my industry_) to SA. I had also stuck with my company for many years, so I have the industry connections and got to be known as a heavy hitter. That trust relationship with the customers mixed with technical know how = sales and consulting.

Again, because of the size of my company I can make my role fluid (including a good way), but call it what you will I engineer, I sell, I consult.

Re: What are Forward Deployed Engineers, and why are they so in demand? (2025)

#48

Post by dansquizsoft »

operatingthetan wrote: post #19
fde_my_butt wrote: post #11

>FDEs are sometimes mistakenly thought of as consultants, but the difference between consultants and FDEs is that the former make one-off recommendations, whereas FDEs generally work with customers, long-term. ...sounds like a consultant to me! Also, even if "long-term" was an important distinction, the term FDE itself became popular a very short time ago !!! https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q…

A consulting I used to work at started calling their engineers this. All of them. They just follow trends.

So much of everything is doing this (following trends)... It's a bit depressing really...
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