It’s not only top AI firms and large consultancies clamoring for FDEs, however. Enterprises from insurance and fintech to healthcare and gaming, are seeking out these specialists, Christian said.
Companies are hiring teams of FDEs instead of bringing them in from firms like Ode, or Deployment Co, seeking to keep knowledge of proprietary processes in-house and protect them from the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic.
“Everybody’s concerned that if they give up their proprietary business processes, can compete with them, which is true in many different areas,” Christian said. “So having this muscle internally is so important.”
Taylor said he’s starting to hear the phrase “internal forward-deployed engineers” more often, but his clients aren’t yet asking Ode to put together internal FDE teams for them.
While many an enterprising young engineer might think they have the industry expertise and AI chops to take advantage of what may turn out to be a talent war, Christian warns that the FDE may not always be in demand.
“Maybe in two years, everything’s automated, and agents are automating agents as opposed to humans automating agents,” Christian said. “That is something that could occur. Hopefully, it doesn’t, and we continue to need these people within companies.”
In the medium-term, he thinks the need for FDEs will shift from enterprise AI to physical AI as companies try to implement things like humanoid robots into their workflows. But within five or 10 years, he says it’s entirely possible that the role of FDE will “go away.”
That may be true for all knowledge work, if AI leaders and CEOs’ vehement predictions come true. While C&T focuses on recruiting for fast-growing industries and hasn’t seen a pullback yet, Christian says more general search firms have definitely experienced a slowdown in recruitment requests.
Everything to do with AI is growing and in demand, he says. For now.
“I think that there’s absolutely a time soon where we’re going to see an impact in our business,” Christian said.
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