Understanding 'Forward Deployed Engineering' and Why Your Company Probably Shouldn't Do It

Palantir is en vogue right now. So of course, folks are cargo-culting elements of its culture, especially “Forward Deployed Engineering”. Lots of companies are trying to imitate this, and some other founders have even reached out to me for advice on whether they, too, should do this model for their startup.

Slapping a title on your field team because it sounds cool is one thing – building a truly “Forward Deployed” culture is another. It doesn’t work without complete commitment to the benefits and costs, and unless you’re willing to accept all of them, you're engaging in thin imitation – just sparkling Sales Engineering – and shouldn’t expect to achieve the same results.

I spent almost 5 years in a “Forward Deployed” role (called “Deployment Strategist” externally, and “Echo” internally). I worked side-by-side with some wildly talented engineers, and got to see this model at its best – and worst. Now I'm running a software business of my own (that’s explicitly not doing “FDE”), and have a deeper appreciation of what made this so unique.

There have recently been a couple of great posts explaining a bit about how Palantir works, including this masterful piece by Nabeel and this FDE-specific piece from Ted. But I want to go a bit further, and talk specifically about why this model is so hard, and such a bad idea for most folks.

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