Sivakumar Sundaramoorthy
Field CISO | Solutions Architect (Security)
Microsoft
OpenAI Deployment Company · May 2026
$4B+
to place FDEs inside client companies
The Forward-Deployed Engineer Company
We get your people ready to work as FDEs.
An FDE sits with a team, works out what it needs and builds it. Practitioners from OpenAI, Microsoft and AWS teach the job to your engineers, analysts and consultants, on cases from your own work. Our FDE Gym scores each person before and after, so you know who is ready.
Andre Vitor Terron
Member of Technical Staff
OpenAI
Alireza Dirafzoon
Sr. Applied Scientist (Tech Lead), Gen-AI Innovation Center (Startups)
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Jameson Merkow
Principal Applied Scientist & Engineer - Health and Life Sciences
Microsoft
Usha Rengaraju
Field CTO - AI and Generative AI (Developer Ecosystems)
NVIDIA
Dipti Aswath
Staff Engineer
Sony Interactive Entertainment
For services firms
Staff the FDE work your clients are asking for
We teach your consultants to scope FDE work and your engineers to build it.
For your own company
Build an FDE team inside your business
Your analysts and operations staff already know what is broken. We teach them, with your engineers, to build the tools that fix it.
Need FDEs before a cohort finishes?
02Why now
OpenAI, Microsoft and Anthropic now sell AI through FDEs.
Microsoft Frontier Company · July 2026
$2.5B
and 6,000 experts embedded with customers
Anthropic Claude Frontier Academy · Oct 2026
10,000
FDEs planned by the end of 2027
Their first partners are the largest consulting firms, including Accenture, Deloitte and McKinsey. 10,000 FDEs is about five for each of the world's 2,000 largest companies.
03The Accelerator
Each pod has one strategist and two builders.
Services firms tell us people who can both scope the work and build it are the hardest to hire.
Strategist track
Works out what to build
For consultants, analysts, BI and operations staff.
Builder track
Builds it and hands it over
For engineers and data scientists.
How a cohort runs
01 · Your people
A few of your people already work like FDEs.
02 · The demand
Your clients and teams want more FDEs than you have.
03 · Select
Each nominee spends an hour in the FDE Gym. The top scores make the cohort.
04 · Learn
Practitioners teach the cohort in pods of three.
05 · Build
Each pod builds a tool for a case from your work. Your practice lead plays the client.
06 · Review
A practitioner reviews each pod’s build every week.
07 · Prove
The gym scores the cohort again, so you see how each person changed.
08 · Back to work
They go back to their teams and do FDE work. The next cohort can start next quarter.
04Practitioners
Your people learn from practitioners who ship AI for a living.
We work with 700+ of them, including engineers at Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon.
Our practitioners hold roles at these companies today.
05FDE Gym
The FDE Gym tests the whole job in an hour.
Each person works a simulated client engagement. AI plays the client's staff, who answer only what they are asked. The person has to find the requirements, build the tool and write a plan.
06Results
Two cohorts are in design, and three engagements have shipped.
A global CX and BPO services firmIn design · Nov 2026
- The ask
- Its clients already ask for FDE work. It wants people who can talk to a CEO and a line worker, then build.
- The plan
- 30 to 40 people start together, and the best 15 to 20 continue for two weeks in pods. The firm’s practice leads play the client, on cases from its own engagements.
- What we measure
- Gym scores at the start and the end.
An AI and analytics services firmIn design
- The ask
- The AI labs send it more FDE work than it can staff. It wants engineers, data scientists, BI staff and consultants ready for client sites.
- The plan
- 15 people spend five days in person, with online work before and after. The work runs on Claude first, then OpenAI. Gym cases come from its own client work, on synthetic data.
- What we measure
- Gym scores before day one and after the final panel.
Shipped
US safety-tech companyShipped
22 engineers went from first conversation to working AI systems.
16-country telecom groupShipped · Q1–Q2 2026
130+ engineers in four countries now build AI systems.
US distributor's India engineering centreShipped · Oct 2026
Engineers rated the first two days of our four-day Bengaluru accelerator 4.98 out of 5.
