Team hire
A small team that arrives working as one.
A deployment strategist with two or more engineers, matched to the problem and placed together, so you get business and engineering skills at once and one point of accountability.
Inside a hub
Built around the problem
Every hub has a deployment strategist. The engineers are chosen for what the work needs.
Deployment Strategist
Finds the problem worth solving, sets the measure, and drives adoption.
About this roleForward Deployed Engineer
Builds and ships AI applications and agents inside your systems.
About this roleForward Deployed AI Engineer
Makes model behavior reliable in production: evaluation, retrieval, guardrails.
About this roleForward Deployed Data Engineer
Gets your data into a state AI can use: pipelines, quality, access.
About this roleWhy hubs
How the largest FDE teams are organized
The organizations that built forward deployed engineering at scale run it in small teams, not as lone contractors. Salesforce pairs one deployment strategist with two forward deployed engineers. AWS works in teams of five to six engineers.
Sources: Salesforce, November 2025; CIO Dive, June 2026.
Hub or individual hires?
When a hub is the better choice
Choose a hub when
- Nobody on your side can own the use case day to day
- The work spans business, AI and data at once
- You want one plan and one point of contact
- There is a deadline and no time to assemble a team
Choose individual hires when
- You already have a leader who owns the work
- You need one skill your team lacks
- You want to grow a permanent FDE team
- The engineers will report into your managers
Other roles
Often hired alongside
Forward Deployed Engineer
Builds and ships AI applications and agents inside your systems.
About this roleForward Deployed AI Engineer
Makes model behavior reliable in production: evaluation, retrieval, guardrails.
About this roleForward Deployed Data Engineer
Gets your data into a state AI can use: pipelines, quality, access.
About this roleForward Deployed Infrastructure Engineer
Deploys and runs AI platforms in hard environments: private, on-premises, regulated.
About this roleHire FDEs
Need a whole team, not one hire?
Someone who understands forward deployed work reads every brief and replies with a view on the engineers you need, how many, and the hiring option that fits.