Most product organizations are structured to work middle to middle. Product managers gather requirements from the market, engineering teams build features, customer success teaches clients how to use them, and support handles escalations. It is an elegant theory of specialization. And yet, in practice, this model often creates distance from the reality of the problem being solved.
The result is predictable. Products become polished abstractions of customer needs rather than tools that solve real work. Teams optimize for roadmaps instead of outcomes. Everyone is busy, but few are solving the actual problem in the environment where it exists. Velocity, ironically, slows.
This is where forward deployed engineers change everything.
What Forward Deployed Engineers Are
Forward deployed engineers are technical practitioners who sit directly in the workflow of the customer environment. They operate where the real work happens. They are not receiving requirements secondhand through a product manager translation layer. They see the work. They see the constraints. They see the friction. And they can change it.
This model is not theoretical. It has been battle-tested.
- Palantir built its early scale around the Forward Deployed Engineer role: https://www.palantir.com/careers/roles/forward-deployed-software-engineer/
- Anduril embeds software engineers alongside operators to create tightly coupled, rapidly iterating defense systems: https://www.anduril.com/technology/
- SpaceX and Tesla colocate engineers on the line, not in conference rooms: https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-manufacturing/
- Datadog and Snowflake credit customer-embedded technical teams with accelerated enterprise adoption: https://www.datadoghq.com/blog/ and https://www.snowflake.com/blog/
The term “forward deployed” has roots in consulting engineers embedded in critical operations. The difference is that now this model applies to software products that are not simply tools but operational systems for entire industries.
The Structural Shift: End to End vs Middle to Middle
When engineers work directly with customers, the company moves from middle to middle (internal teams trading artifacts) to end to end (engineers embedded where value is created and value is delivered). This rewires incentives.
The goal is no longer to ship features. The goal is to remove friction from the customer journey. Every day. Continuously.
Organizations that embrace this model are being honest about the nature of software. Software is not static. Software is the operational model of a business. It has to reflect real workflows, real constraints, real incentives. The only way to do that is to put engineers in the real environment.
Ben Thompson has written about the power of integration when companies own the full problem surface: https://stratechery.com/2020/the-end-of-the-beginning/
Forward deployment collapses the gap between intention and reality.
Why This Compounds
Forward deployment creates:
- Shorter feedback loops
- Real customer empathy
- Outcome alignment
- Systems-level understanding
This is the foundation for compounding advantage. Learning loops accelerate. Context depth compounds. Solutions reflect the real system rather than an imagined one.
The Cost
None of this is free.
You have to hire differently. Not just strong engineers, but engineers comfortable with ambiguity, autonomy, and external-facing collaboration. You have to measure differently. Value delivered matters more than story points burned. You have to empower teams.
The Bet
If you view software as a finished product, forward deployment looks inefficient.
If you view software as the operating system of your customers’ business, forward deployment is the only rational structure.
The companies that win over the next decade will be the ones whose engineers work where the work is, who ship change into reality, and who build end to end.
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