Google Cloud puts $750M behind partners building forward deployed engineering practices

Google Cloud is steering a $750 million partner investment toward channel firms that build their own forward deployed engineering practices, according to a CRN interview published on November 11 with Samrah Khan, Google's director of global and regional systems integrator partnerships. The money covers presales funding, proofs of concept, MVPs and industry-specific Gemini solutions for partners that commit to Google's agentic AI platform.

To get the training and resources, partners enroll in Google's Gemini Enterprise Transformation (GET) program. Google will run its FDE training courses for a set number of each partner's people at no charge and certify them as Google FDE and Agentic AI certified. Google also says it pairs its own FDEs with partners: it brings certified partner engineers into enterprise accounts where Google is short on people, and gives some partners dedicated Google FDEs who shadow them on implementations.

Chicago-based partner 66degrees says about 20% of its workforce are now FDEs, trained first through its own internal FDE University and then through Google's courses. CEO Ben Kessler told CRN the firm has had to completely rethink its workforce around the role.

For FDEs, this is another sign that the hyperscalers want the role to scale through consultancies and systems integrators, not just their own teams. Following AWS's partner FDE credentials and Salesforce's partner FDE network, Google certification is becoming another credential partner-side engineers can earn.