Forward Deployed Engineers
Engineers who ship the software next to the people using it, not behind six layers of Jira.
What is a forward deployed engineer?
A forward deployed engineer (FDE) is embedded with the customer, not walled off behind a product manager. They observe the actual workflow, write the code, and iterate in the same room.
The role was pioneered by Palantir in the early 2000s and is now standard at OpenAI, Anthropic, Retool, and Ramp for their highest-stakes builds. We’re bringing the same model to trades and professional services.
How an engagement runs
Same shape every time. Concrete milestones, no ambiguity about what you get when.
Week 1
We embed.
Sit with the team that'll use the software. Watch dispatch, watch the office, watch the follow-up. Map the systems, the shortcuts, and the workarounds that never made it into a requirements doc.
Week 2
Working prototype on your data.
Not a mockup. Real software your team clicks through, with your customers and your workflow. We iterate in the room, not through tickets.
Week 3+
Ship, then keep shipping.
Live in your Slack. Feedback in the morning, changes by afternoon. We stay after the first ship to make sure it holds, and we build the second thing when you're ready.
Why it matters for a custom build
The Standish Group has tracked software project outcomes for 30 years. The majority finish over budget, late, or abandoned. The FDE model is a direct response to why:
Software that fits the work
The FDE watches the actual job get done before writing a line of code. No requirements-doc telephone game, no demo-driven design.
Weeks, not quarters
One person, in your Slack, iterating. Feedback in the morning, changes by afternoon. This is why Palantir out-shipped competitors 5× their size.
Adoption without training
When the software matches how your team already talks and works, onboarding is a hallway conversation. Most custom software fails on adoption, not features.
Knowledge that compounds
The engineer learns your operation deeply, so v2, v3, and every extension after ship faster than v1. You're not restarting the discovery clock each time.
Meet the engineers
Seth Beckman
Lead Engineer, Kairos Engineering · Founder, Narrow Path Strategies
Seth Beckman is a lead engineer at Kairos Engineering and the founder of Narrow Path Strategies, his AI and automation consultancy. He holds a degree in computer engineering and built his early career in network engineering, work that taught him how systems actually fit together at the hardware level, long before the software ever runs on top.
That foundation shapes how he approaches AI. He's spent his career on both sides of the table: the technical side, architecting automation systems and AI tools, and the business side, helping real companies save time and make money with them. It's given him a clear read on what works and what's just hype, and a habit of putting AI only where it earns its keep, on a foundation of clean, connected data, rather than bolting it onto a mess.
His approach is simple: under-promise, over-deliver, and tell people the truth even when it's not what they want to hear. He doesn't sell tools. He builds the systems businesses run on, and helps the people behind them understand what they're actually getting. Practical over hyped, results over buzzwords.
Connor Fitzgerald
Lead Engineer, Kairos Engineering · Founder, TREMODI Solutions
Connor Fitzgerald is a lead engineer at Kairos Engineering and the founder of TREMODI Solutions, his cybersecurity and IT consultancy. He came up through U.S. Air Force cyber operations and is a Certified Ethical Hacker, trained to break into systems the way real attackers do. That work taught him where software tends to fail, long before most people think to look.
That foundation shapes how he builds. Connor has spent his career on both sides of security: finding the weaknesses attackers exploit, then engineering software that closes them off from the start. He thinks through how something could be broken into before it ever ships, so protection is part of the product instead of bolted on later. Years of working across different industries have given him a clear read on what a business actually needs, and the discipline to build only what serves that, on a foundation that's solid, tested, and secure.
His approach is simple: build it right, say what's true even when it's inconvenient, and never leave a client exposed somewhere they can't see. He isn't interested in software that looks finished but quietly puts a business at risk. He builds systems companies can genuinely trust, and makes sure the people relying on them understand exactly what they're getting and how it's protected. Secure by design, honest by default.
Ready to run your operation from one place?
Talk to the engineer who’ll build it. No sales team in the middle. The first call is with one of us.