Forward Deployed Engineering

Part of Lenny Rachitsky’s “The AI-Native Product Manager” free workshop series on Maven. This Lightning Lesson teaches the Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) mindset used by leading AI companies like Palantir, OpenAI, and Anduril. The session focuses on closing the gap between what teams build and what customers actually need — by embedding engineers in customer environments to observe real-world software usage. Register for free on Maven What You’ll Learn Build from real customer pain — Develop instincts by witnessing when systems fail in production environments Develop customer instinct systematically — A week-by-week playbook for customer calls, support shadowing, and feedback loops Avoid product-killing mistakes — Understand why teams overbuild unwanted features or underbuild critical functionality Background I built and led Project Frontline at Palantir, training 250+ engineers in the FDE methodology. Alumni now work at OpenAI, xAI, Anduril, and other AI-focused companies. I also led FDE practices at Citadel before co-founding Kepler. ...

Originally published on Next Play If you work in tech, you should learn about Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE). It’s quickly become one of the most popular roles that nearly all fast-growing AI companies are looking for…at the same time, it’s the type of role very few people and companies seem to actually understand. I designed Project Frontline at Palantir, a program that sent over 250 engineers into live customer deployments. Those engineers are now at OpenAI, xAI, Anduril, and dozens of leading companies. ...