SO YOU WANT TO HIRE A FORWARD DEPLOYED ENGINEER: HOW TO KNOW IF YOU NEED ONE AND HOW TO GET THE ROLE RIGHT

Summary from the TLDR Founders newsletter

Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) embed directly with customers to build the 'last mile' of the product to work in production. Unlike traditional solutions consultants or sales engineers, FDEs are still very much engineers who write and debug production code. Founders are turning to the FDE model to roll out highly technical AI products to remove the blockers that stand in the way of adoption. This post looks at what makes this role successful. FDEs can be powerful when deployed intentionally, but they're not the answer for every company or customer, and it takes a ton of careful design to get a return on investment in the role.