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In Brief
OpenAI and Google Cloud created new Forward Deployed Engineer organizations in the same week.
This "consultant who codes" position is a sign labs are coming directly for the $6 trillion U.S. knowledge-work wage pool, and the role itself is opening up beyond computer science majors.
What Happened
Forward Deployed Engineers became the most-talked-about role in enterprise AI this past week. OpenAI launched its Deployment Company with over $4 billion in initial investment from TPG, Advent, Bain Capital, Brookfield, and Goldman Sachs, alongside system integrators including Bain & Company, Capgemini, and McKinsey. OpenAI is also acquiring applied AI consulting firm Tomoro, bringing roughly 150 experienced FDEs on day one.
On the same day, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian announced a new AI-focused organization inside Google Cloud's go-to-market team, with plans to hire additional FDEs to scale customer AI transformation. Box CEO Aaron Levie posted that FDEs are about to be "one of the most in-demand jobs in tech" and urged college career counselors to start steering students toward the role. Allie K. Miller pushed back, warning that treating FDEs as an entire transformation plan is "the most expensive mistake in enterprise AI right now."
SmarterX founder and CEO Paul Roetzer discussed what the role actually is and where the bigger opportunity sits, on Episode 215 of The Artificial Intelligence Show.
The Key Numbers
$4 billion - initial investment behind OpenAI's new Deployment Company
150 - FDEs joining OpenAI on day one through the Tomoro acquisition
800%+ - growth in FDE job postings between January and September 2025, per Indeed and FT analysis
$1 of software = $6-$10 of services - historical ratio the labs are chasing
$6 trillion - U.S. knowledge-work wages the labs are ultimately positioned against
Why the Role Just Exploded
An FDE is essentially a consultant who can code. Palantir pioneered the title in the early 2010s, embedding engineers with government clients to customize software in production environments. The role has been around for years. What changed is that agentic AI made the technical lift inside customer organizations dramatically harder, and the labs need humans on the ground who can do that lift right now.
"If you're wondering, 'Isn't it just a consultant?' The answer is yes," Roetzer says. "It's a consultant who has technical ability to actually go in and customize software, in this case AI models and agents, to solve problems for businesses."
The labs are coming for consulting revenue, not just headcount. The FDE structure lets OpenAI and Google charge on business outcomes, not tokens. If an FDE identifies and solves a $100 million problem, the lab takes a percentage of the outcome. That model puts the AI labs in direct competition with consulting firms such as Deloitte and McKinsey, even while officially partnering with them.
"While they're not gonna say this outright, they're a hundred percent going after them. They're coming for your work."
— Paul Roetzer, founder and CEO of SmarterX, Episode 215 of The Artificial Intelligence Show
The non-technical version of the role is the bigger story. Inside SmarterX, multiple non-technical people are already playing essentially an FDE role for their own functions, re-architecting workflows on top of AI and getting real results.
The SmarterX State of AI for Business research backs this up. The top two barriers to adoption are lack of education and training (38%) and lack of awareness and understanding (35%). Those are not problems an engineer alone can solve.
SmarterX Take
Levie is right that FDE is one of the more interesting technical career paths in AI. Miller is also right that no enterprise transforms on engineers alone. The real opportunity for most professionals is to reframe their existing domain, marketing, sales, ops, supply chain, legal, through the FDE lens: become the person who deeply knows the function and deeply knows the tools, and re-architect the workflow yourself.
For organizations, the partnership question is just as urgent. OpenAI, Google Cloud and Salesforce can't hire FDEs fast enough to serve every enterprise customer. That gap will get filled by solutions partners that go deep on one platform, the same way agencies went deep on HubSpot in 2007. The opportunity to build that practice is open right now.
What to Watch
What happens to the consulting firms. Bain, McKinsey and Capgemini are partnering with OpenAI today. The same labs are also their biggest competitive threat for the underlying delivery work. That tension is going to surface fast.
The talent war for FDEs and AI accelerators. The labs need them, the consulting firms need them, and every enterprise will need their own internal version. Compensation for anyone who can credibly play this role is heading up.
Further Reading
OpenAI Launches The Deployment Company → openai.com
Aaron Levie on FDEs as the Hottest Job in Tech → x.com
Allie K. Miller's Pushback → x.com
Salesforce: Today's Hottest Role, Forward Deployed Engineer → salesforce.com
Heard on The Artificial Intelligence Show, Episode 215
Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput discuss why Forward Deployed Engineers just became the most-talked-about role in AI, and why the bigger opportunity may be the non-technical version of the role. Listen →
Mike Kaput
Mike Kaput is the Chief Content Officer at SmarterX and a leading voice on the application of AI in business. He is the co-author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence and co-host of The Artificial Intelligence Show podcast.