Forward Deployed Engineering Services with a senior AI-native engineer accountable from day one.

Forward deployed engineering (FDE) is a delivery model in which an engineer works inside a customer's organization and owns a problem end to end, from understanding the need to shipping and running the software. The term comes from Palantir, where the role is called forward deployed software engineer, and AI companies have made it popular again, often as the forward deployed AI engineer. At unicrew we deliver FDE as a service: one senior, AI-native engineer joins your team and owns the work from requirements to release.

A forward deployed engineer is a senior engineer who works inside a customer's organization and owns a problem end to end, from the first conversation with the people who run the work to tested software in production. At unicrew, that engineer is AI-native.

A typical week mixes conversations and code. The FDE talks to the people who run the work, often including your customers, turns what they hear into requirements and a prioritized backlog, then writes and tests the code and ships releases with notes your team can read. An FDE writes code like any software engineer, and also helps you decide what gets built and in what order.

Seniority and AI. Our FDEs practice AI-native engineering: AI does much of the drafting in every role, from requirements and test cases to code and documentation, while the engineer makes the decisions and reviews every output. Using AI for planning and testing as much as for code is how one person covers several roles well. Each FDE owns one product or workstream, every FDE is a senior unicrew engineer, and when work has to run in parallel, we add FDEs.

By who owns the outcome. With staff augmentation you add engineers to your team and direct their work, and the outcome stays with your lead. A forward deployed engineer takes that on: onboarding ends in a written outcome plan covering what the quarter will deliver, how progress is reported and what counts as done, and the FDE runs the backlog against it. If you already have a lead with time to direct engineers and a backlog you trust, a dedicated team is the right choice.

A consultant mostly advises, and a fractional developer mostly codes for a set number of hours a week under your direction. A forward deployed engineer does both and owns the result: they work out with your people and customers what should be built, then build, test and ship it. Solutions engineers and solutions architects usually hand over at the sale or the design, while an FDE stays through release and beyond. If what you need is technology strategy, our CTO consulting service is the better fit.

The two combine well. An FDE fits when the work can't wait for a hire to ramp up, or when you want to prove a way of working before you build a team around it. When the capability will be central to your product for years, your FDE runs the work while you hire, then hands it over to the people you bring in, with the code, documentation and decision log already in your repositories.

As a member of your team. Your FDE joins your stand-ups and customer calls, works in your repositories and tools with only the access the work needs, and reports progress against the plan. If you already work with developers or an agency, the FDE works alongside them in the same repositories and meetings, and owns the workstream you give them.

For software companies, the FDE also works with your customers' teams under your process and brings what they learn back to your product team. Your FDE is one of our 100+ senior in-house engineers across six countries, and the teams clients work with sit in Ukraine, Poland, Estonia and the UK.

It carries on. Code, documentation and the decision log live in your repositories from the first day, and a second unicrew engineer knows your systems well enough to cover absences. When your FDE changes, the new engineer overlaps with the outgoing one before the handover. And when you bring the work in-house, the same documentation makes the handover a planned step.

Every engagement starts with onboarding that ends in a written outcome plan for the quarter, a baseline and a working agreement. From then on your FDE owns the work against that plan, and we review it with you every quarter: the plan is renewed, more FDEs join, or the work moves to your team. An FDE is billed monthly, per team member, and an FDE team is billed the same way. There is no minimum engagement period, and most engagements start within two to four weeks.

Your code and data stay under your rules. Your FDE works inside your AI and data policy: if a tool isn't approved for your code, it isn't used. Every AI-assisted change goes through the same review and tests as any other change, and the engineer reviews everything AI produces before it ships. Access follows our ISO 27001:2022-certified practices, with only the access the work needs and NDAs signed before anyone logs in.