Not a contractor. Not a consultant. A senior engineer who works inside your team, on your problem, with your people, and stays accountable once real users touch what they build.
Why this model exists
Forward-deployed engineering is suddenly being thrown around by agencies and staffing firms. The idea behind it is simple and older than the buzzword: put a strong engineer where the problem actually lives, and let them own it.
An FDE does not wait for a perfect spec. They figure out what needs building, build it, and make sure it works once real users touch it. The difference from a contractor is ownership. The difference from a consultancy is that they stay, and the knowledge stays with you.
What you get
The engagement starts with a single senior engineer inside your team and grows only when the problem justifies it. These are the working arrangements we offer; exact scope is agreed with your team.
A forward-deployed engineer joins your team remotely, works in your tools and rituals, and owns an agreed problem end to end. They are not a ticket-taker: they figure out what needs building, build it, and stay accountable once real users touch it.
What to verify: Check that the engineer attends your standups, works in your repositories and answers for outcomes, not hours.
Behind the deployed engineer sits our broader team: specialists in agents, data, cloud, mobile and QA. Hard problems get reviewed and unblocked without you hiring each skill separately.
What to verify: Ask how specialist input is brought in and who reviews architectural decisions before they ship.
The engineer shapes the work with you: what to build first, what to skip, what evidence proves it works. Specs are treated as starting points, not contracts to hide behind.
What to verify: Look for a written first-sprint goal with acceptance checks, agreed with your team, before code starts.
Decisions, trade-offs and operating paths are documented as we go. When the engagement ends or changes shape, your team keeps the code, the context and the ability to run it.
What to verify: Verify handover artefacts: architecture notes, runbooks and a named owner on your side.
AI in the engagement
AI is not a separate offering bolted on. It is part of how our engineers build, and part of what your team absorbs by working alongside them.
FDEs build AI features the same way they build everything else: with evaluation, permissions and audit records. An agent that cannot be measured does not ship.
Working alongside an engineer who ships AI daily teaches your team more than any workshop. Prompting, evaluation and failure modes become part of your team's normal vocabulary.
Evaluation harnesses, monitoring dashboards and review workflows built during the engagement stay with you, so the next AI feature starts from a stronger base.
One engagement, end to end
Every engagement follows the same shape: understand the problem, agree one sprint goal in writing, build inside your team, and review the evidence together before deciding what comes next.
Working principles
Accountability, process fit and visible trade-offs decide whether an embedded engineer actually works. We make those commitments explicit rather than implied.
The engineer owns a problem, not a task list. Progress is measured in shipped, verified increments that real users can touch.
We adapt to your planning, review and release rituals. If your process has gaps, we help fix them, but we do not impose a parallel methodology.
Every significant decision is written down with its alternatives and its cost. You never discover a trade-off after it has been made for you.
A clear monthly engagement cost, agreed scope per sprint, and no surprise line items. Compute and third-party spend stay inside budgets you approve.
Security & trust
An embedded engineer touches your code, your data and your customers. Access, ownership and data handling are agreed in writing before the first commit.
The engineer works inside access you grant, scoped to the problem, revocable at any time. No shared credentials, no shadow systems.
All work lands in your repositories from day one, subject to third-party licences. There is nothing to 'transfer' at the end because you already own it.
Customer payloads, credentials and personal data stay out of prompts, logs and traces unless you explicitly approve otherwise in writing.
Code review, dependency checks and test coverage follow the same bar you would set for a senior internal hire, and the evidence is handed over.
Working arrangements
The engineer works remotely inside your rituals, in your cloud and your repositories. On-site visits are arranged where being in the room genuinely helps.
The engineer works remotely with agreed overlap hours, attending your standups, reviews and planning. Timezone overlap is agreed before the engagement starts.
Work happens in your cloud accounts and environments, under your network rules, identities and billing. Nothing new to trust.
Start with one engineer. Add specialists or a pod when the problem grows, or scale back when it does not. No long lock-in contracts.
How it starts
A paid two-week sprint proves the working relationship before anything longer is discussed. If it does not show real progress, you walk away.
A working session with your team: the product, the users, the constraints and where engineering time currently goes. We agree whether an FDE is the right shape at all.
One outcome, acceptance checks, access boundaries and budgets, in writing. A paid two-week sprint proves the working relationship before anything longer is discussed.
The engineer joins your team, ships working increments and reviews them with you. Specialist support from our wider team is pulled in when the problem needs it.
After each sprint, review the evidence together: what shipped, what it cost, what is next. Extend, change shape, or hand over with documentation and a named owner on your side.
A contractor executes a spec. A forward-deployed engineer owns a problem: they figure out what needs building, build it, and stay accountable once real users touch it. They work inside your team, not beside it.
Consultancies deliver a report or a project and leave. An FDE stays inside your team for as long as the problem needs, and the knowledge, code and tooling stay with you throughout, not in a final handover deck.
A senior engineer matched to your problem, with our wider team behind them. You meet them before anything is signed, and the two-week sprint exists so both sides can judge the fit with real work.
It is a paid sprint at an agreed fixed price, scoped to one outcome. If the first two weeks do not show real progress, you walk away. No long contracts.
That is the default. The engineer joins your standups, your repositories and your review process. If you have no engineering team yet, the FDE can operate as your first engineering capacity and help you hire.
You keep everything: code in your repositories, documentation, runbooks and the tooling built along the way. We can also continue operating what we built if you want that.
The default is fully remote with agreed overlap hours. On-site visits can be arranged for kick-offs, workshops or critical phases where being in the room genuinely helps.
Each sprint ends with a review of shipped, verified increments against the agreed goal. You see progress in working software and user outcomes, not in status decks.
Yes. Many engagements start with one engineer and grow into a dedicated pod of three to five when the problem justifies it. Scaling down is equally allowed.
Let's talk
Tell us about the product, the users and the constraints. We will help define a first sprint goal and the evidence needed to judge it.