AWS, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google expand forward-deployed engineer programs
AWS, Anthropic, OpenAI and Google have each recently announced expansions of their forward-deployed engineer (FDE) programs, sending specialist engineers to work on-site with customers to get AI into production, according to TechRadar. Lightcast research cited in the report shows US job ads for FDE roles rising from roughly 200 in both 2023 and 2024 to about 1,200 in 2025, then to 7,300 in the first nine months of 2026 — a further roughly 6x year-over-year jump. The report says OpenAI has backed its FDE business with a $4 billion investment and AWS with $1 billion, while Anthropic plans to train 10,000 specialist engineers by the end of 2027; three of the four top advertisers of these roles were consultancies (Deloitte, Accenture, KPMG), with Google the only tech firm.
As model capability stops being the bottleneck, vendors' ability to supply human deployment muscle may matter more than benchmark leadership in winning enterprise customers.