# Forward deployed engineer

An engineer who works inside a business unit to build a working solution for the company through to production.

An FDE often identifies the goals and steps that make up a job, which is the groundwork Agentic needs.

Also called: FDE, Deployment engineer, Embedded engineer, Deployment strategist, Applied AI engineer

Often confused with: Product engineer, AI champion

Related: Use-case owner

Source: https://redfinchadvisory.com/lexicon/forward-deployed-engineer (version 1.0, changed 2026-10-22)