Forward deployed engineers sit where software meets the business. Popularised by Palantir and now central to how vendors like OpenAI, Anthropic, Salesforce, Cognition and Scale AI deliver their platforms, the FDE model puts a capable engineer directly alongside your operational teams, with a mandate to ship working outcomes rather than close tickets. Waverton sources forward deployed engineers for Australian and New Zealand businesses, locally or offshore, across the platforms where the model matters most.
A forward deployed engineer is a software engineer who works embedded with a client's business, translating messy operational problems into working software on the platform at hand. The role emerged at Palantir, where FDEs configure and extend Foundry and AIP inside client environments, and it has since become the delivery model of choice for AI platform vendors. OpenAI, Anthropic and Cognition deploy FDEs to take their models and agents into production inside customer businesses. Salesforce has adopted the model for Agentforce. Adobe, Databricks and Snowflake partners increasingly deliver the same way. The common thread is that modern platforms create value through deployment into real workflows, and that work needs an engineer sitting with the business, not a developer working from a specification two steps removed.
A standard developer starts from a specification or a ticket. An FDE starts from a business problem, often poorly defined, and produces the definition as part of the work. A standard developer sits inside a delivery team, insulated from stakeholders by analysts and project managers. An FDE sits with the business users, watches how the work actually happens, and builds against what they see rather than what was written down. A standard developer is measured on delivered features and code quality. An FDE is measured on business outcomes: the process automated, the decision accelerated, the model in production and being used. Both roles are valuable, and most programmes need both.
The model fits wherever a powerful platform meets a business that has not yet worked out how to use it. Palantir Foundry and AIP deployments are the original case. AI agent rollouts, including Salesforce Agentforce, Cognition's Devin and custom builds on OpenAI and Anthropic models, are the fastest growing one. Data platform activation on Databricks and Snowflake, where the warehouse exists but the business value does not yet, is a third. Customer experience platforms such as Adobe Experience Cloud, where the licence is bought and underused, is a fourth. In each case the gap is not platform capability; it is an engineer close enough to the business to close the distance.
Waverton sources forward deployed engineers onshore in Australia for engagements where proximity, data sovereignty or security requirements demand it, offshore where cost efficiency matters and the work supports it, and blended where a local lead pairs with offshore build capacity. Every FDE is screened for the profile the role demands: engineering depth, stakeholder fluency and comfort with ambiguity. Engagements run under any of Waverton's four models, from a single embedded FDE through to a fixed bid outcome delivered by a forward deployed team.
A consultant advises and hands over recommendations. An FDE builds. The role carries consulting-grade stakeholder skills, but the output is working software in production, not a deck.
Palantir Foundry and AIP, Salesforce including Agentforce, Adobe Experience Cloud, Databricks, Snowflake, and AI deployments built on OpenAI, Anthropic and Cognition technologies, alongside the wider set of nineteen enterprise platforms Waverton supports.
Yes. Discovery-heavy phases benefit from onshore presence, and many builds then scale with offshore FDEs under onshore leadership. Waverton structures the mix to the engagement.
Screened candidates are typically shortlisted within days, with start dates subject to the engagement model and any clearance requirements.
They overlap but differ in mandate. Staff augmentation supplies capacity into your existing structure. An FDE carries an outcome mandate and operates with more autonomy alongside the business. Waverton provides both and will advise which fits.