There's a hot new tech job in town: forward deployed engineering.

A report by Scaler and CyberMedia Research found that 88% of Indian enterprises surveyed expect demand for FDEs to grow by 2030.

But what does a forward deployed engineer actually do? What skills do you need to become one? And is this a genuinely new career path, or just a fancy rebrand of work that software engineers have been doing for years?

We speak to FDEs, founders and industry experts to find out.

Tune in to the latest episode of The Signal Brief.

The Core produces The Signal Brief. Follow us wherever you get your favourite podcasts.

NOTE: A machine transcribed this episode. A human has looked at this text but there might still be errors. Please refer to the audio above, if you need to clarify something. If you want to give us feedback, please write to us at feedback@thecore.in.

TRANSCRIPT:

Shubham: Like, client expectation is that right now, based onto the AI world, everything is just a click away. So first, to break that myth is pretty tough because the client will do a ChatGPT and come up with a reply that the ChatGPT is saying that this task can be done in three days, and you are telling me that it will take months or so.

That's where the skills of yours as an FD comes into the picture of the product management, where you are able to make sure that the client is aligned, happy, and it's alignment based onto the company's objective as well.

Kudrat (Host): That was Shubham, he’s been in the IT industry for eight years. Of them, he’s been a forward deployed engineer for the past two.

He just described the kinds of problems he deals with on a daily basis as a forward deployed engineer.

His is a job that's been getting a lot of attention recently.

According to a report by Scaler and CyberMedia Research, 88% of the Indian enterprises which surveyed expect that demand for forward deployed engineers will increase by 2030.

But here's the interesting part: only 1% of the engineers surveyed currently work in explicitly designated FDE roles the way Shubham does.

So, what exactly is a forward deployed engineer? Why are companies looking for them? And is this the next big tech job, or is hype running ahead of reality?

Kudrat (Host): My name is Kudrat Wadhwa and you’re listening to The Signal Brief.

You’re listening to our Friday episode, where we tell stories about how Indians live, work and spend.

Today, we look at the rise of the forward deployed engineer.

Kudrat (Host): Let's start with the basics.

A forward deployed engineer is essentially an engineer who works directly with a company's customers.

Think of a company that wants to use AI to improve its business. Maybe a bank wants a chatbot to answer customer questions. Or an online retailer wants to automate its customer service.

It can buy the technology. But getting that technology to actually work for its business is a whole other challenge.

That's where a forward deployed engineer comes in.

Amar Srivastava is the CEO of the online business of Scaler, an upskilling platform for tech professionals. He told me that the first and foremost skill that FDEs need is to understand the fundamentals of software engineering.

Amar: Second is obviously you need to have very good problem-solving skill set. That if this is a problem, this is how you will solve. And not solve just from the code point of view, but actually implement that entire workflow in, let's say different enterprise or let's say alien settings, right? So you are not comfortable. I'm sure that you would have heard about engineers, let's say, spending most of their hours behind a computer screen, right?

So they are not very familiar with asking questions, getting that information, figuring out what to solve.

That is something that, let's say, senior leaders or front-end product managers, et cetera, used to do. And the third part is you have to be very good with iterating on the go, right? That means that if what you have done is not working, quickly figure out how you go about it. So these three skill sets, application layer, being very good with fundamentals and software engineering and AI engineering, and third, stakeholder management.

Kudrat (Host): In other words, an FDE needs to move comfortably between coding, solving business problems and working with people.

Now Palantir, which is an American AI company that works extensively in defense, named this role–hence, the allusion to the military.

Today, several AI companies and startups are hiring FDEs.

And, those employed in this role are earning big, even in India–the same Scaler-CyberMedia report found that 80% of engineers currently working in explicitly designated FDE roles earn between Rs 40 lakh and Rs one crore annually.

So, why are FDEs all the rage right now?

To understand that, let's look at things from a company's perspective.

I spoke to Maitreya Wagh, founder of Bolna, a company that helps businesses automate phone calls using artificial intelligence.

Bolna initially wanted customers to use its product on their own.

But Maitreya says the company soon realised that enterprise customers needed more hands-on help.

Maitreya: At the start, we wanted to be completely product-led. I think one of the first FDEs... I mean, we hired a, we hired a business manager, and we realized that if the business manager has a call a week with a client versus has a one-hour call every day with a client, the chance of success and retention of that client is, like, 100 times higher.

And it became a very replicable motion that instead of one, if we have five such people, then suddenly there are 10 clients that we are onboarding every week. And we have gone from having zero FTEs last September to having 21 FDEs today.

Kudrat (Host): And, talking to clients and stakeholder management is most of the job of being an FDE, Amar told me.

Amar: So an end-to-end project for any firm that sort of sends their FDEs lasts for somewhere between three to four months, but 80% of that time goes in stakeholder and user conversations to ensure that, hey, everything is, let's say, what to dif- what to solve, how to solve, where to get the right kind of data, what data to act on, what technology to use, because not all the models are, let's say, great at particular workflows.

And then only a couple of weeks, or let's say 20% of the time, goes in actually building that tech workflow and then implementing and sort of tweaking it to gain and let's say create the large value.

Kudrat (Host): Sometimes, that means dealing with clients who expect AI to do a lot more than it can realistically deliver.

Here’s Shubham again.

Shubham: Like, client expectation is that right now, based onto the AI world, everything is just a click away. So first, to break that myth is pretty tough because the client will do a ChatGPT and come up with a reply that the ChatGPT is saying that this task can be done in three days, and you are telling me that it will take months or so.

That's where the skills of yours as an FDE comes into the picture of the product management, where you are able to make sure that the client is aligned, happy, and it's alignment based onto the company's objective as well.

Kudrat (Host): Now, skills and work aside, how does one become a forward deployed engineer?

You could sign up for courses–Scaler is currently running a pilot course which they started in July 2025.

Amar says it focuses heavily on practical knowledge.

Amar: So we launched the program in July of this year, so students are still as part of the program.

The problem is that only bookish knowledge, or let's say just watching videos, is something that in our experience we have again and again seen is not able to really help someone become an FDE that will be successful, right?

One thing that at Scaler that we have been able to do is that we have used a- again, AI itself to create a simulation lab which gives you a simulation of stakeholders, a simulation of live enterprise source data. So we have partnered with some of the large firms in India across domains. And then the problems that they have and then under the mentorship of real experts working as FDE, you get access to all of these things, and you have to deliver under pressure to sort of really create outcomes. So that is when people learn. This is where I think a lot of people are going wrong, where they are just looking at that probably, "Hey, I learn it from a textbook and become."

So that will not help because an FDE is more of a client-facing role.

Kudrat (Host): But courses aren’t the only way.

In fact, Shubham told me he was already doing many of the tasks that an FDE does, even in his previous role.

Shubham: I was a senior software engineer previously. But coming to, to this company, my role was transitioned to a forward deployed engineer role where... Because I previously had a pretty good experience of handling the clients. I've been handling the clients for the past seven, eight years now.

I didn't knew at that point of time what exactly the for- forward deployed engi- engineer role was all about. It was just an apply from my end. Later on, when the interview process started, then I got to know that it requires to handle the clients as well. So I had a pretty good experience, so I don't have to prep much into that. So I was pretty much confident that this section I would be able to nail it because I was handling for the client. Like, like I told you, since the starting of my career, I was handling the clients…

Kudrat (Host): So, whether you learn on the job or through a specialised programme, the idea is to build more than technical skills. You need to be able to take a problem from a conversation with a client all the way to a working solution.

Shubham’s experience of already performing a lot of the tasks that FDEs do also brings up another point.

Forward deployed engineering isn't necessarily an entirely new line of work.

For years, some software engineers have worked directly with clients. They’ve understood their requirements and helped build and implement technology for them. Some companies called these people implementation engineers, solutions engineers or even simply software engineers.

But now, companies are increasingly bringing all of these responsibilities together under one role.

And AI is making this model more relevant. As AI tools make writing and modifying code faster, companies need employees who are client-forward and have people skills.

For engineers who move into these positions, that can also mean a significant change in compensation.

Shubham says his salary nearly doubled after the transition.

Before this role, he was earning Rs 20-30 lpa. Now, his salary is in the Rs 40-50 lpa range.

But, he cautions against expecting massive salary jumps and very high packages.

Shubham: I take many of the interviews for an FDE role, and their expectation is way beyond high. Agree to your point that the salary expect-expectation of the salary is pretty much high.

Some companies are giving also, but their roles and responsibility are also accordingly.

So you have to make sure that you are being a realistic guy, and whenever you are applying for an FDE role, you can expect a high salary, but you need to expect a higher difficulty of round as well. Like in general, if a software engineer has... If you are applying for an SD2 or SD3 role, there are usually four to five rounds that is included. But for an FDE role, there will be one or two rounds extra, which requires you to either create a PRD, client handling base scenario, how do you handle the clients, and if this situation arise, what exactly will be your steps? Because it's not like you are breaking a production and you can fix it again. If you are losing a client, you won't get back.

Kudrat (Host): Despite the demands of the job, Shubham says he's happy with the switch.

Shubham: I'm pretty much happy because I'll tell you, because I'm ki- I'm the kind of a guy who wants to learn multiple skills. I've been learning how to become a content creator. I have been... Like, I have been a traveler right now for the past two to three years. So I- I'm the kind of a guy who wants to... don't want to stick to a specific domain. I want to learn multiple skills because after certain point of time, in some company, either I'll be the engineering manager, CTO, CEO, or even if I start my own company, I should have the skills.

Kudrat (Host): His advice to young people?

Look beyond coding.

Shubham: So I think college students shouldn't be focusing on to the technical stuff only. Technical, of course, once you are into the college, the technical stuff matter and whatever projects you are building upon, don't build the project for the building of, like, for the sake of building a project, to satisfy that you build something. Try to identify some problem statement, which is, either around the college, at home, your family member, and make it live for the normal users to use it.

That's how you will be able to learn. And when you show that into your resume that you have been, you know some sort of a product management skill, you know the technical side of stuff where you have deployed one project where even though if there are 100 users, I'm pretty much okay. But you, it should be a project kind of a where 100 users are coming and using your product. That's how you will be able to grow and that's create an impact for the resume as well.

Outro: That's all for today. You just heard The Signal Brief, your once-a-week look at the stories shaping how Indians live, work and spend.

The Core produces The Signal Brief. Follow us wherever you get your favourite podcasts.

To check out the rest of our work, go to www.thecore.in.

If you have feedback, we'd love to hear from you. Write to us at feedback@thecore.in or you can write to me personally at kudrat@thecore.in.

Thank you for listening!