{"id":28398,"date":"2026-07-14T10:10:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T14:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.insightpartners.com\/?p=28398"},"modified":"2026-08-06T14:02:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T18:02:35","slug":"demystifying-forward-deployed-engineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insightpartners.com\/ideas\/demystifying-forward-deployed-engineers\/","title":{"rendered":"Demystifying the forward deployed engineer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\">AI flipped the old enterprise buying pattern, as customers used to pick a platform and build up from there. Now, as Databricks&#8217; Jason Martin puts it, they start with a hard problem and find whoever can solve it. &#8220;I&#8217;m not going to start on the platform, then build up,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;m going to pick my vendor based on who can solve this hard problem.&#8221; Products got more powerful and more incomplete at the same time. The forward deployed engineer (FDE) is how vendors close that gap.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"><strong>This piece comes from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.insightpartners.com\/onsite\/\">Onsite Hour<\/a>, a weekly virtual event series for portfolio companies, created by Insight\u2019s 100+ in-house experts. This blog is the first installment of a three-part series that explains FDEs in plain terms.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The discussion was moderated by Managing Director <a href=\"https:\/\/www.insightpartners.com\/team\/george-mathew\/\">George Mathew<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Panelists included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"2\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\uf0b7&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"1\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/ankit-sobti\/\">Ankit Sobti<\/a>, cofounder and CTO at Postman*<\/li>\n<li aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"2\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\uf0b7&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"1\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jaymonsf\/\">Jason Martin<\/a>, VP of FDE at Databricks*<\/li>\n<li aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"2\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\uf0b7&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"1\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/rajkumarirudayaraj\/\">Rajkumar Irudayaraj<\/a>, SVP of Global Technology at Alteryx*<\/li>\n<li aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"2\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\uf0b7&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"1\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/johnaisien\/\">John Aisien<\/a>, SVP at ServiceNow<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Five\u00a0considerations\u00a0for founders\u00a0and CEOs<\/h2>\n<p>1. <strong>Pick a North Star<\/strong>. \u201cFigure out your North Star, and as long as you have confidence in the sanctity of that North Star, just stick to it, even when you\u2019re being buffeted from all sides,\u201d said Aisien. His North Star is the number of agentic builds in production.<\/p>\n<p>2. <strong>Treat FDE as your primary engine for learning<\/strong>. &#8220;If I were starting a B2B business today, I would think about an FDE motion as my primary engineering motion,\u201d said Sobti. The model turns one signal into a pattern, then \u201ca compounding flywheel\u201d that feeds the product.<\/p>\n<p>3. <strong>Guard the front door<\/strong>. Demand explodes the moment it works. \u201cInterest is not the same as readiness,\u201d said Irudayaraj. \u201cDefine entry criteria, exit criteria, and kill triggers before the build starts, and keep the FDE, &#8216;a scarce capability.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>4. <strong>Win on talent, and own it from the top<\/strong>. \u201cIt\u2019s all about talent,\u201d said Martin. \u201cIn AI, the difference between your best person and your medium or worst person is 10x what it was a year or two ago.\u201d At Databricks, even the CEO still weighs in on FDE hires.<\/p>\n<p>5. <strong>Design every engagement to end<\/strong>. Solve the hard problem, then leave. Aisien tells his team lead that the goal is \u201cto do yourself out of business, literally.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>What is a forward deployed engineer?<\/h2>\n<p aria-level=\"2\">At Insight Partners, we define FDEs as a market response to a growing AI value gap and widespread AI proof-of-concept (POC) failure. In our experience, most AI solutions do not work out of the box for a customer\u2019s specific use case and therefore never make it to production. FDEs \u201ccomplete the box.\u201d The profile is a highly curious, technical builder with strong interpersonal skills who can navigate organizational resistance, conduct deep problem discovery, and own the outcome.<\/p>\n<p aria-level=\"2\">Unlike other roles, they build the last-mile solution, and the capabilities they create compound back into the core product. Critically, the FDE is not a permanent fixture. Once the outcome is proven, ownership transfers to the teams who productize and run it at scale, and the FDE shifts to the next frontier to keep the discovery engine running.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how our panelists define it:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cGive us your hardest problem, we\u2019ll go solve that\u2026you own the IP, we\u2019ll hand it over to you.\u201d \u2014 Jason Martin, Databricks<\/li>\n<li>A catalyst for \u201cterrain capture\u201d using agentic builds \u201cas a building block to solve a business problem\u201d inside accounts where ServiceNow already has incumbency. \u2014 John Aisien, ServiceNow<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWe identify a signal\u2026turn that signal into a pattern\u2026and then create a compounding flywheel\u201d that feeds the product. \u2014 Ankit Sobti, Postman<\/li>\n<li>The FDE should be \u201ca permanent learning loop for the company,\u201d not \u201ca permanent crutch for the customers.\u201d \u2014 Rajkumar Irudayaraj, Alteryx<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 aria-level=\"2\">How is an FDE different from a consultant or a sales engineer?<\/h3>\n<p>A consultant or professional services team delivers a defined scope of work and leaves. A sales engineer demonstrates the product to close the deal. An FDE takes an ambiguous, unscoped problem, builds the last-mile solution, and owns the result. Irudayaraj explained, \u201cI\u2019m not going to build a demo with an FDE. There are others who can do that for you. You have solution engineers who do that all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin described how, at Databricks, pre-sales and post-sales now blur into one motion that leads with the customer\u2019s hardest problem instead of defending billable hours. He pointed to a relationship that began as a $30,000 proof of concept and grew into a multi-million-dollar engagement. \u201cIt can\u2019t be about hours and people,\u201d he told the panel. \u201cIt\u2019s got to be about outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 aria-level=\"2\">What does an FDE actually do?<\/h3>\n<p>The panelists answered with live examples. Irudayaraj described embedding with one of the largest quick-service restaurant chains in the U.S. to automate a manual financial reconciliation that had consumed 300 to 400 hours a year, and then recognizing that thousands of other restaurants shared the same problem. \u201cYou create this once, and you don\u2019t have to do it for the rest,\u201d he said. The point of that first win, in his words, is \u201cshortening the distance from executive curiosity to a commercial action.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>\u201cIf I were starting a B2B business today, I would think about an FDE motion as my primary engineering motion.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Find the most painful problem, build a working solution in the customer\u2019s real environment, then turn that one win into something repeatable. Sobti further explained: \u201cIf I were starting a B2B business today, I would think about an FDE motion as my primary engineering motion.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 aria-level=\"2\">How are leaders launching FDEs?<\/h2>\n<p>Each company launched an FDE team for a different strategic reason and runs it in a different part of the business.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\">Postman launched FDEs to convert its <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.postman.com\/what-we-learned-from-building-an-ai-agent-for-40-million-developers\/\">40-million-developer<\/a> base into enterprise deals, solving API problems that no product feature could. The team sits outside the revenue org with a hunter mindset, and the north star is new product patterns fed back from the field.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\">Databricks built its FDE motion around the reality that AI changed what customers buy: When vendors win by solving hard problems rather than selling platforms, FDEs land the logos that the platform motion was missing. The team sits across pre- and post-sales in a positive-margin, outcome-based model, with platform adoption as the north star.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\">ServiceNow, already embedded in most large enterprises, needed its customers to actually put <a href=\"https:\/\/www.insightpartners.com\/ideas\/state-of-the-ai-agent-ecosystem-use-cases-and-learnings-for-technology-builders-and-buyers\/\">AI Agents<\/a> into production. FDEs drive that terrain capture and funnel learnings back into the product, sitting inside engineering and tracked by the number of agentic builds live.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\">Alteryx faced a different problem: Large customers were paralyzed by AI choices and unclear on what to trust. FDEs de-risk the decision by proving working outcomes in the customer&#8217;s own data, deployed as a scarce resource behind a strict front door alongside sales engineering and success.<\/p>\n<h3 aria-level=\"2\">Who owns the intellectual property (IP) that an FDE builds?<\/h3>\n<p>The panel\u2019s answer: You keep what matters. Martin said a vendor \u201cneeds to own the IP\u201d for anything reusable, or it cannot be returned to the product, while custom models trained on a customer\u2019s data belong to the customer. Handing over the rest is a feature rather than a concession: \u201cIt\u2019s a much better answer for the customer than being like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m locked in now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Databricks increasingly builds in the customer\u2019s own environment and leaves the work there. Irudayaraj reframed the debate, arguing the real prize is not the IP fight: \u201cThe best FDE motions don\u2019t just help companies win one or two accounts, they teach the company how to win the next 10, the next 100.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 aria-level=\"2\">How do you pay for it, and prove it is working?<\/h3>\n<p>Databricks targets positive margin and sells value, not time-and-materials. ServiceNow, Aisien explained, funds its team as research and development, and the value the engineers create rolls into recurring revenue through a usage meter he calls an \u201cassist.\u201d On proof, the speakers agreed on speed. With modern tooling, a solution can come together in days and weeks, and Databricks will sometimes build before a contract exists. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to even charge you for it, because we\u2019re pretty confident you\u2019ll say yes,\u201d said Martin. \u201cSo we\u2019ll do delivery at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 aria-level=\"2\">Launching FDEs today<\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"EOP Selected SCXW261870598 BCX0\" data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:150,&quot;335559739&quot;:70}\">Here is how the speakers answered when asked what they would do differently if they started over.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>1. Start a rotation program between core engineering and the FDE team on day one.<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cI wish I had started that from the outset,&#8221; says Aisien. &#8220;It\u2019s been an absolute game-changer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>2. Begin earlier-career hiring sooner<\/h3>\n<p>AI \u201cturns it all upside down,\u201d Martin said, and you want builders who are \u201cmore open to doing it differently, more creative,\u201d and \u201cwilling to sleep under the desk sometimes.\u201d Vibe coding is now part of the Databricks interview: \u201cWe ask people to vibe code\u2026It\u2019s how they talk about it. Why did they build it that way?\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>3. Set the qualification bar and the kill criteria even earlier<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cInterest is not the same as readiness,\u201d Irudayaraj said. \u201cI would be much more explicit upfront on what must be true before an FDE engages.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>4. Launch the motion earlier while going up-market<\/h3>\n<p>Building it, Sobti said, \u201cChanges the way that you think about building an enterprise product.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 aria-level=\"2\">Common FDE misconceptions<\/h2>\n<p>A few things the panel put to rest.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-leveltext=\"\u2022\" data-font=\"\" data-listid=\"3\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:460,&quot;335559991&quot;:260,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\u2022&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"5\" data-aria-level=\"1\">\u201cIt is just professional services with a new name.\u201d\u00a0No. Professional services deliver a fixed scope; FDEs take on the\u00a0unscoped\u00a0problem and own the outcome.<\/li>\n<li aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-leveltext=\"\u2022\" data-font=\"\" data-listid=\"3\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:460,&quot;335559991&quot;:260,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\u2022&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"5\" data-aria-level=\"1\">\u201cPalantir invented the FDE.\u201d\u00a0Palantir coined the term, but not the motion.<\/li>\n<li aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-leveltext=\"\u2022\" data-font=\"\" data-listid=\"3\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:460,&quot;335559991&quot;:260,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\u2022&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"5\" data-aria-level=\"1\">\u201cFDEs only build flashy demos.\u201d\u00a0The goal is a repeatable pattern running in production, not a demo.<\/li>\n<li aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-leveltext=\"\u2022\" data-font=\"\" data-listid=\"3\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:460,&quot;335559991&quot;:260,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\u2022&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"5\" data-aria-level=\"1\">\u201cIt is a late-stage, go-to-market add-on.\u201d\u00a0The leaders wish they had started sooner.<\/li>\n<li aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-leveltext=\"\u2022\" data-font=\"\" data-listid=\"3\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:460,&quot;335559991&quot;:260,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\u2022&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"5\" data-aria-level=\"1\">\u201cYou lose your IP.\u201d\u00a0You keep the reusable IP; only custom, data-specific work goes to the customer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 aria-level=\"2\">The bigger picture<\/h2>\n<p>The FDE motion is changing who owns the outcome. \u201cTen, fifteen years ago, we would simply show demos, PowerPoints, maybe even a POC,\u201d said Aisien. Now, he argued, responsibility is \u201ca lot more balanced between the asset provider and the customer.\u201d He called that \u201crebalancing the responsibility map for outcomes in a way that I think is really, really healthy for software businesses all around.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The leaders also see the motion benefiting earlier-stage companies and getting more automated over time. Irudayaraj believes founders \u201cshould consider having an FDE motion when they\u2019re incubating\u201d \u2013 even \u201ca seed stage company or startup.\u201d Postman is already building its team as \u201ca combination of humans and Agents,\u201d Sobti said, even standing up \u201ca field CTO as an Agent\u201d that anyone in the company can query. \u201cIt\u2019s too early to take a victory lap,\u201d he added, \u201cbut I really like the leading indicators that I\u2019m seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Want to go deeper? The series continues<\/h2>\n<p>The #1 question from the audience was \u201cWhat actually makes a great FDE?\u201d If you\u2019re an Insight portfolio company, be sure to tune into the next two sessions in our July FDE series to find out. Otherwise, stay tuned for post-event recaps like this one, which we will publish after each event.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>*Editor&#8217;s note: Insight Partners invested in Postman, Databricks, and Alteryx.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI flipped the old enterprise buying pattern, as customers used to pick a platform and build up from there. Now, as Databricks&#8217; Jason Martin puts it, they start with a hard problem and find whoever can solve it. &#8220;I&#8217;m not going to start on the platform, then build up,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;m going to pick [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":28731,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-thought-leadership","topic-industry-insights","domain-ai-ml"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.1 (Yoast SEO v23.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Demystifying the forward deployed engineer | Insight Partners<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.insightpartners.com\/ideas\/demystifying-forward-deployed-engineers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Demystifying the forward deployed engineer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"AI flipped the old enterprise buying pattern, as customers used to pick a platform and build up from there. Now, as Databricks&#8217; Jason Martin puts it, they start with a hard problem and find whoever can solve it. &#8220;I&#8217;m not going to start on the platform, then build up,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;m going to pick [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.insightpartners.com\/ideas\/demystifying-forward-deployed-engineers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Insight Partners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-14T14:10:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-06T18:02:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.insightpartners.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/blog-hero-onsite-forward-deployed-engineer-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1440\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Beard\" 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