FDEs for hire: FDE Times on why vendor FDEs and outsourced FDEs are judged by almost opposite measures
An Oct 21 FDE Times analysis looks at firms such as &above and Entrans that sell forward deployed engineers as a service, and argues that who pays the FDE decides whether success means retaining the customer or making the client self-sufficient.
The FDE title has spread beyond software vendors like Palantir: consultancies and smaller specialists such as UK-based &above and Entrans now hire and manage engineers and embed them in client teams as "FDE-as-a-Service". FDE Times argues the same title now hides three different models: vendor FDEs, outsourced FDEs and plain staff augmentation.
A vendor FDE is ultimately measured on software sold and customers kept, while an outsourced FDE promises that the client's own team will own and extend the system once the engagement ends. Citing Gartner and Forrester warnings about lock-in, broad access and speed-driven blind spots, the piece says handover skills are becoming a real advantage, and suggests testing a handover by having the client's team ship a change while the FDE keeps hands off the keyboard.
For candidates, it is a useful lens on job ads: phrases like "scoped workflow", "capability transfer" or "embedded with client team" suggest you will be judged on handover, while ads that only talk about hours and tech stack are likely staff augmentation under a new name.
Source: fdetimes.net