The Hottest Role in Salesforce

Posted on December 18, 2025 • 4 min read • 748 words

According to Salesforce: Forward Deployed Engineer

The role everyone’s suddenly talking about.

If you’ve spent any time around AI launches lately — especially Agentforce — you’ve probably heard the title Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) come up more than once. According to Salesforce, it’s one of the hottest and fastest-growing roles in tech right now, and it exists for a pretty simple reason:

AI moved faster than most companies were ready for.

Forward Deployed Engineers sit at the intersection of product, engineering, and real-world customer delivery, making sure AI actually works once it leaves the slide deck.

Salesforce describes FDEs as part technical architect, part consultant, and part hands-on problem solver — the people brought in when an AI agent should work, but doesn’t yet (Salesforce article).

Why this role exists now  

AI adoption has outpaced organizational readiness. Models are powerful, platforms are capable, but companies still struggle with:

• Data not being connected correctly
• Knowledge bases out of sync
• Ambiguous use cases
• Unclear ROI expectations

Salesforce tells the story of a B2B reservation platform whose first AI agent struggled due to data and knowledge issues. Forward Deployed Engineers embedded with the customer, fixed the issues with product teams, and got the agent live within a week. That success led to a second agent, expanded languages, and ongoing feature development (Salesforce article).

That pattern — deploy, fix, learn, repeat — is exactly why the role has exploded.

According to analysis cited by both Salesforce and the Financial Times, job postings for Forward Deployed Engineers increased more than 800% in 2025 (Financial Times).

What a Forward Deployed Engineer actually does  

Across companies, the title varies slightly, but the core responsibilities stay consistent:

• Embed directly with customers
• Design, build, and deploy AI-powered solutions
• Work through ambiguity and incomplete requirements
• Ship production systems quickly
• Feed real-world learnings back into the product roadmap

At Salesforce, FDEs often work in small pods:

• One deployment strategist (defining the use case)
• Two Forward Deployed Engineers (designing and building)

They may stay with a customer for weeks or months, sometimes on-site, until the solution is stable and delivering value.

Deloitte’s version of FDEs follows a similar model, emphasizing:

• Business-problem-first delivery
• Client-embedded teams
• Cross-disciplinary pods
• Industry-specific execution
• Platform-driven scalability

The consistent theme: speed to impact, grounded in real business context (Deloitte article).

How AI companies are using FDEs  

The Financial Times reports that companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere are aggressively hiring FDEs to accelerate enterprise adoption (Financial Times).

OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineers:

• Lead deployments of frontier models in production
• Build full-stack systems end-to-end
• Travel up to 50% of the time
• Operate under urgency and ambiguity
• Influence product and research direction through field feedback

Compensation reflects the intensity: $180K–$280K plus equity (OpenAI listing).

The unfiltered reality (according to engineers)  

On Reddit, engineers words are a bit more direct (Reddit thread).

Common themes from practitioners:

• “Customer-facing engineer” is the simplest definition
• Heavy travel and long hours are common
• Compensation is high, but burnout risk is real
• The role often feels like professional services with stronger engineering expectations
• Career progression can be sideways or upward, depending on goals

Some see FDE as a brand-name accelerator. Others see it as consulting with a cooler title. Both can be true.

One thing is consistent: this is not a low-effort role.

Is this a Salesforce-only role?  

Not at all — but Salesforce is making it mainstream.

What’s different now is how closely FDEs are tied to AI agent success. As Salesforce pushes Agentforce and autonomous agents deeper into real business workflows, the gap between “configured” and “working” has widened.

Forward Deployed Engineers exist to close that gap.

Who this role is for (and who it isn’t)  

This role tends to work best for people who:

• Enjoy ambiguity more than stability
• Like shipping outcomes, not just code
• Are comfortable in customer conversations
• Can balance speed, quality, and scope under pressure

It’s usually not a fit if you:

• Want deep focus on one codebase
• Prefer minimal meetings or travel
• Expect clean requirements upfront
• Want a purely internal engineering role

Why this role matters  

Forward Deployed Engineers are a signal that AI maturity isn’t just about better models — it’s about execution.

Salesforce, OpenAI, and Deloitte are all converging on the same conclusion:

The fastest way to make AI valuable is to put strong engineers directly where the problems are.

That’s why this role exists — and why it’s not going away anytime soon.

Keep working hard, smart, and happy. We’ll see you in the cloud!