What Is a Forward Deployed Engineer?
An FDE is a software engineer who works directly with businesses to customise, implement and integrate technology solutions, ultimately bridging the gap between product development and an organisation’s needs.
Examples of an FDE’s responsibilities include:
- Working closely with firms to solve practical business problems.
- Implementing software.
- Building integrations within a firm’s existing systems.
- Writing custom code and workflows
- Troubleshooting deployment issues.
Why Do Businesses Use Forward Deployment Engineers?
Investing in sophisticated software, AI tools or data platforms is pointless without the right expertise to integrate them into existing systems and processes.
Many organisations struggling to implement these tools will find that it’s not the technology that’s the problem, but a lack of internal skills to make it work inside a real business.
This is where the expertise of an FDE comes in.
What’s the Difference Between a Forward Deployed Engineer and a Software Engineer?
While an FDE will have the same technical skills as a software engineer, this role differs due to the additional abilities required, such as communication and problem-solving.
Here are some examples of how these roles differ:
| Software Engineer | Forward Deployed Engineer |
|---|---|
| Mainly builds core products | Works directly with customers |
| Usually office or remote based | Often works closely with client teams |
| Customer interaction is limited | Significant customer engagement |
What Skills Does a Forward Deployed Engineer Need?
A successful FDE will need to have a mixture of technical and soft skills.
These include things like:
- Strong software engineering skills
- Experience with APIs and system integrations
- Cloud platform knowledge
- Data engineering or AI experience
- Problem-solving
- Project management abilities
- Client and stakeholder communication skills
- Being able to explain technical concepts simply
- Commercial awareness
Contracting as a Forward Deployed Engineer
The role of an FDE has evolved considerably over the years in terms of permanent vs contract.
While it used to mostly be a permanent based role, FDE’s are now more likely to go down the self-employment route, and this isn’t just due to contractor benefits but demand too, with many businesses looking to hire on a project basis.
This creates better-paid opportunities for experienced self-employed FDE’s, plus project-based contracting also makes it less likely that a contractor will fall inside IR35.
If you’re interested in joining the self-employed sector, then take a look at our How to Become a Contractor page for further advice.
We hope you found this page helpful. If you have any further questions, our team of experts are available to answer any queries, so give us a call on 01442 795 100 or email jaime.thorpe@dolanaccountancy.com. Alternatively, contact us via live chat.
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