Sourcing and Vetting Your Engineer
We go out and find the engineer who fits your stack rather than assigning whoever is between projects. You meet them and approve them before the engagement begins.
Core Service
Forward Deployed Engineering
Forward deployed engineering is the model the software vendors invented: put a senior engineer inside the customer's team, have them learn the business properly, and build until the thing is doing real work in production. Iron Triangle runs that model without the vendor. We source the engineer, embed them remotely in your team, and point them at every platform you run rather than at the one product somebody sold you.
The Same Model, Without the Product Quota
When you buy enterprise software today, the better vendors send a forward deployed engineer along with it. They sit with your team, learn how you actually work, and build until their product is earning its keep. It is a genuinely good model and it has one hard limit: that engineer is paid to make one product succeed. We give you the same embedded senior engineer with no product to defend and no quota to hit.
One Engineer, All of Your Integrations
Most integration work is not one system. It is five systems that have to agree with each other, and no single vendor will staff that, because most of it sits outside their product. We will. Your forward deployed engineer works across your CRM, your ERP, your finance system, your data warehouse and whatever you built in house, under one Iron Triangle agreement. Start with a free consultation.
What Is a Forward Deployed Engineer?
The Role
A forward deployed engineer, or FDE, is a senior engineer who works inside your team rather than from a vendor's head office. The role was pioneered at Palantir and has since spread across enterprise software and the AI labs. An FDE is not a support engineer working tickets, not a sales engineer running demos, and not a strategy consultant delivering a deck. They frame the problem, build against your real systems and your real data, and stay until it is running in production.
Why It Became the Role Everyone Wants
Because software stopped being something you install. Modern platforms, and AI features above all, only produce value once they are wired into the way one specific business already works, and nobody can do that from the outside. Postings for the role grew several hundred percent year over year through 2026, and the largest vendors are now investing heavily in fielding their own.
Where the Vendor Version Runs Out
A vendor's engineer is excellent inside the boundary of the product they arrived with. Ask them to reconcile your ERP against your CRM, or to judge honestly whether their employer's product is the right choice for one part of the problem, and you are asking them to work against their own mandate. Work that crosses platforms needs somebody whose mandate is your outcome.
A Vendor's Engineer and Ours, Side by Side
| Point of comparison | A vendor's forward deployed engineer | An Iron Triangle forward deployed engineer |
|---|---|---|
| Whose outcome they serve | Adoption of the product you bought | The result you engaged us for |
| Scope of the work | That vendor's product | Every platform the problem touches |
| Available without a large license | No, it arrives attached to the contract | Yes, the engineer is the engagement |
| Judging whether a product fits | Conflicted by who employs them | Independent, with nothing to sell you |
| Integrations across several vendors | Out of scope | Usually the reason you called |
| Contract and invoicing | A line inside that vendor's agreement | One Iron Triangle master services agreement |
| When the engagement ends | The engineer returns to the vendor | Documented handover to your own team |
What Forward Deployed Engineering Covers
Multi Platform Integration
CRM, ERP, finance, the data warehouse, the tools you built in house, and every connection between them, treated as one system rather than six separate vendor problems.
Vendor Neutral Judgment
No product to defend. When the honest answer is that something you already own will do the job, or that the platform you are about to buy is wrong for it, that is the answer you get.
Business Immersion
Your engineer learns the business before building in it: the workflows, the exceptions, and why the strange process is actually load bearing. Software built without that is what you replace in two years.
Knowledge Transfer and Handover
Documentation, runbooks and deliberate teaching, so the capability stays with your team when the engagement closes rather than walking out with the engineer.
One Agreement, One Invoice
Engaged under the Iron Triangle master services agreement. One relationship, one point of accountability and one invoice, however many platforms and vendors the work has to cross.
How an Engagement Works
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Consultation and scope
Free, and genuinely exploratory. Which platforms, which integrations, what finished looks like, and whether you need an embedded engineer at all. If the honest answer is that you do not, we will say so.
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We go and source the engineer
We find the right person for your stack rather than assigning whoever happens to be between projects. You meet them and approve them before anything starts.
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Business immersion
The first weeks go on learning your business rather than writing code: the workflows, the exceptions, and the reasons the odd process exists. This is the part the vendors get right and most staffing arrangements skip entirely.
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Build and integrate
Real work in your real systems, across as many platforms as the problem touches, with your team rather than in a separate room.
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Handover
Everything built is documented and transferred to your people. An embedded engineer should leave you more capable, never more dependent.
The whole engagement runs under the Iron Triangle master services agreement, so it stays one relationship and one paper trail however many platforms and vendors the work crosses.
Common Questions About Forward Deployed Engineers
What is a forward deployed engineer?
A senior engineer who embeds inside your team instead of working from a vendor's office. They frame the problem, build against your real systems and data, and stay until the work is running in production. The role was pioneered at Palantir and is now standard practice across enterprise software and the AI labs.
How is this different from the forward deployed engineer a vendor provides?
Scope and incentive. A vendor's engineer is paid to make one product succeed and works inside that product's boundary. Ours works across every platform you run and has nothing to sell you, which is what the job actually needs when the problem is several systems having to agree with each other.
Is this staff augmentation or contract development?
No. Staff augmentation gives you a pair of hands against somebody else's task list. A forward deployed engineer owns an outcome, spends real time learning your business first, and is accountable for whether the thing works in production.
Do we have to be a Salesforce customer?
No. This service is deliberately platform agnostic. Salesforce is one of our deepest specialties and plenty of these engagements touch it, but the engineer is sourced for whatever your stack actually is.
Is the engineer remote or on site?
Remote and genuinely embedded: in your tools, your meetings and your channels, working alongside your team. Embedding remotely is what makes the model practical without putting travel on every invoice.
How long does an engagement run?
Long enough to learn the business and ship something that stays shipped, which in practice means months rather than weeks. We scope the length in the consultation against what the work genuinely requires.
Who employs the engineer, and how does billing work?
The engagement runs through Iron Triangle. We source the engineer, the work sits under our master services agreement, and you receive one invoice from us no matter how many platforms or vendors the work crosses.
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