I think FDE is the future of SWE

Forward deployed engineers work directly with users to understand a problem and build a solution from zero to one.

I think this will become a much bigger part of software engineering.

AI is making it easier to write code and build prototypes. But it does not automatically know what a company should build, how people actually work, or which tradeoffs matter. As implementation gets easier, understanding the problem becomes more valuable.

Tech companies may become much more efficient at writing code and advancing technically. That does not mean every hospital, factory, nonprofit, or small business will automatically advance with them. Most organizations cannot simply plug a new model into their existing work and start seeing results, plus most probably don't live in this crazy AI bubble SWE's live in.

Technology companies need to grow limbs that reach into the rest of the economy and pull other organizations forward with them. I think forward deployed engineers are those limbs. They can bring new technology into real environments and adapt it to existing workflows

I saw this while working on software for nonprofits. At Refettorio Harlem, the goal wasn’t just to turn a WhatsApp message into structured data. The system also had to fit the tools staff already used, let them confirm the result, and reliably save it. The hard part was understanding the workflow around the code.

The risk is creating a one off solution for every customer. Good forward deployed teams should turn repeated problems into features that everyone can use.

I don’t think every software engineer will become a forward-deployed engineer. We will still need people focused on infrastructure, platforms, and long-term technical problems.

But I think more engineers will be expected to talk to users, work through unclear requirements, deploy what they build, and care about whether it actually gets used or not.