Forward deployed engineering

Aug 25, 2026

⏭️ Forward Deployed: Voice AI on what works in 2026

This podcast episode delves into the pragmatic realities of building and deploying voice agents in enterprise. Featuring leaders from Decagon, Vapi, Retell, Daily, and Smallest AI, the discussion uncovers why the current state-of-the-art relies on cascaded pipelines (STT -> LLM -> TTS) instead of direct voice-to-voice models. Key challenges explored include managing latency versus intelligence, ensuring system reliability through fallback models, the complexities of turn-taking, and architectural strategies to overcome LLM context limitations and optimize costs. The experts also touch upon the differences between inbound and outbound use cases, multilingual considerations, and the potential future of hybrid voice agent architectures.

Jul 31, 2026

Decagon’s Playbook for Building Enterprise AI Applications

Jesse Zhang and Ashwin Sreenivas, co-founders of Decagon, discuss their company's transition to open-source models for enterprise AI, emphasizing how fine-tuned small models outperform frontier models on specific tasks. They delve into the role of application-layer companies in an AI-first world, their product-driven 'glass box' approach for enterprises, and the transformative power of their 'Duet Autopilot' agent, which builds other AI agents. The conversation also covers AI's impact on jobs, highlighting the Jevons Paradox in customer support.

Jul 28, 2026

How Forward Deployed Engineering is done at Factory — Eno Reyes

Eno Reyes discusses Factory's unique approach to Forward Deployed Engineering, positioning FDEs as the "tip of the spear" for product feedback rather than professional services. He introduces the "software factory" concept, an AI-driven, automated pipeline from signal to deploy, enabled by Droid—a model-independent, air-gappable agent harness. Reyes emphasizes "agent readiness" through robust validation loops as key to achieving autonomy, citing successes like migrating massive codebases. He frames the FDE's role as a balancing act, demonstrating the future of autonomous engineering without alienating customers, akin to Disney's Epcot analogy.

Jul 28, 2026

The Dirty Secret of Forward Deployed Engineering — Natalie Meurer, Sierra

Natalie Meurer discusses the "dirty secret" of Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE), arguing that its definition has broadened so much it has lost specific meaning, yet remains critical in the age of AI. She traces its evolution at Palantir from pure DevOps to data integration, custom solutions, and enablement, highlighting customer accountability as its enduring core. Meurer contends that as AI makes code cheap, the focus shifts to integrating data, understanding customers, and achieving outcomes—making agent engineering a direct descendant of FDE under a new name, especially evident in the move towards outcome-based pricing models.

Jul 28, 2026

How Forward Deployed Engineering is done at Decagon — Sunny Rekhi

Sunny Rekhi, CTO of Forward Deployed Engineering at Decagon, explains how his company builds and scales AI customer service agents. He delves into the dual nature of forward-deployed work – agent configuration and product development driven by customer asks – and how this role blends with core product engineering. The discussion covers critical strategies for scaling from 50 to 500 employees, emphasizing restraint, early success definition, industry specialization, and the ethos of turning custom solutions into self-serve, reusable product features.

Jul 28, 2026

How Forward Deployed Engineering is done at Kepler — Vinoo Ganesh

Vinoo Ganesh, formerly of Palantir, details how Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) functions as a critical product strategy rather than a sales role. He shares insights from Palantir's Foundry development, emphasizing how FDEs embed with customers to uncover true problems, observe user behavior, define a common linguistic ontology, and build production-ready solutions from temporary fixes, ultimately driving core product leverage.