800% jump in postings for a new kind of AI role: forward-deployed engineers

Tech is among the industries hit hardest by the ‘jobless boom’, with mass layoffs primarily driven by advances in artificial intelligence and automation.

Yet in the midst of AI-related job losses, a new tech role is exploding, suggesting that AI still has a role in job creation.

Forerunners in the AI race, such as Anthropic and OpenAI, are actively recruiting software engineering specialists called forward-deployed engineers (FDEs) to help with tailoring AI models to meet customer needs. More than just working with back-office coders, these engineers are embedded within customer and product engineering teams.

According to a Financial Times report, monthly job postings for FDEs have grown by over 800% from January to September 2025, entailing a closer look at this emerging role that enables industries to leverage their AI investments.

Software company Palantir Technologies is said to be the pioneer for this role, deploying their software engineers to deduce customer demand and code in alignment with these needs.

A look at the day-to-day roles of Palantir’s FDEs reveals that they work exclusively with one customer. Using Palantir’s own tech stack of enterprise, government, AI, and operational platforms, they build production-ready workflows and collaborate with Deployment Strategists (DS) to tailor and iterate software in operational environments.

Given the success of Palantir’s FDEs that now comprise half of its workforce, AI startups are in a race to replicate this strategy that builds on the hybridity of technical coding and customer-facing problem-solving.

OpenAI has formed an FDE team with an expected size of about 50 engineers, allowing it to customize its AI tools for specific industries like agricultural machinery. Meanwhile, Cohere makes use of Palantir’s model by embedding FDEs at the start of customer contracts.

In essence, as companies buy AI models, they need engineers who ensure those models actually work not just in the lab but for real-world client needs.

The surge in FDE hiring reflects a major turning point in how companies are adopting AI, moving from experimentation to execution. As a previous MIT study on AI adoption reveals a 95% failure rate in creating business value, businesses that have invested heavily in large language models or cloud-based AI infrastructure must ensure that they turn those tools into real, usable products.

That’s where forward-deployed engineers come in.

Unlike traditional software engineers, FDEs go beyond writing code to go out in the field and understand where AI can make the biggest impact. Their mission is to bridge the “last mile” of AI: transforming a general-purpose model into scalable AI solutions that reflect complex client requirements and solve their problems.

By balancing technical and operational priorities, the role is quickly becoming essential in justifying AI investments.

As one industry analyst told the Financial Times, the spike in demand for FDEs signals a “shift from research to real-world results.”

For engineers navigating a turbulent job market, this trend offers both opportunity and a clear message: AI fluency isn’t enough; customer-facing AI skills are the real edge. The most in-demand tech workers in 2026 are not just coders but also communicators, problem-solvers, and translators between AI systems and human needs.

As this hybrid skill set defines the next phase of AI hiring, today’s software engineers must work on their ability to gather user feedback and continuously refine workflows to secure their place in modern tech companies.

Forward-deployed engineers embody where the industry is headed: roles that combine human insight with machine intelligence. Those who can operate in that intersection will define the next wave of innovation.