An engineer inside your business. Not a consultant with a slide deck.
Forward deployed engineering means we work where you work. We learn how your business runs, build the software next to you, and hand you the keys when it's done. Big companies pay millions for this model. We bring it to NEPA small businesses.
Most consultants show up, ask questions, and leave you with a strategy document. Then you have to find someone to actually build the thing. The companies that made forward deployed engineering famous... Palantir, OpenAI, Anthropic... only embed engineers at Fortune 500s. Nobody does this for the plumber, the machine shop, or the accounting firm down the street.
Here's what we do.
What a forward deployed engineer actually is
A forward deployed engineer is a software engineer who works embedded inside your business instead of from a vendor's office. They sit with your team, learn your workflows firsthand, and build working software against your real data. The deliverable is a running system your team uses... not a recommendation about what to build someday.
We build in your shop, not from a distance
We come to you. We watch how the phones get answered, how jobs get scheduled, how paper moves through the office. Then we build the fix right there and test it with your people. Problems surface in hours instead of getting buried in a status report.
You own everything when we're done
No proprietary platform. No monthly ransom to keep your own software running. Our job is to make you self-sufficient, so our involvement should shrink over time, not grow. We build it, we train your team on it, and it's yours.
Frequently asked questions
What is a forward deployed engineer?+
A forward deployed engineer is a software engineer who embeds inside a client's business instead of working from a vendor's office. They own the whole job... understanding your workflows, building the software, deploying it, and training your team. The model was made famous by Palantir and is now used by OpenAI and Anthropic to get AI working inside large enterprises. We do the same thing for small businesses in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
How is this different from hiring a consultant or an agency?+
A consultant hands you a plan and leaves the building to you. An agency takes your requirements and disappears for months, and a lot of them hand the actual work to an offshore team. A forward deployed engineer does the understanding and the building as one job, on site, with your team in the loop the whole time. You see working software in weeks, not a document.
Do I need to be technical to work with you?+
No. Most of our clients have never worked with a software engineer before. We explain everything in plain English and we sell you the outcome, not the technology. You don't have to see how it applies to your business yet... let's talk and see how your business runs, and we'll help you identify the gaps.
Isn't forward deployed engineering just for big companies?+
That's how it started. Palantir and Deloitte embed engineers at Fortune 500s and charge accordingly. But AI coding tools changed the math. One experienced engineer can now do what used to take a full team, which makes the embedded model affordable for a 5 to 50 person business. To tell you the truth, small businesses get more out of it... there's less bureaucracy in the way, so things ship faster.
How long does an engagement take?+
Most projects reach a working build in about 30 days. Simple automations take less. Bigger systems roll out in phases so you're getting value while the rest is being built. We scope it honestly up front, and if something is uncertain we say so instead of promising a date we can't hit.
What does forward deployed engineering cost?+
Every project is priced on scope, so we don't publish a rate card. What we can tell you: it costs a fraction of what enterprises pay for the same model, and far less than hiring a full time engineer. The first conversation is free and we'll tell you honestly whether the math makes sense for your business.
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Want an engineer in your corner?
30 minutes. No pitch. We'll look at how your business runs and tell you what an embedded engineer could actually fix. If the answer is nothing, we'll tell you that too.