Hire Forward Deployed Engineers

A bridge to gap the distance between complex development and real business outcomes. Hire Senior Forward Deployed Engineers who work directly in your environment, integrate artificial intelligence, modernize legacy systems, and deliver fast product rollouts to production.

Hire Forward Deployed Engineers for AI and Legacy Modernization

Your AI roadmap and your modernization backlog compete for the same handful of senior people, and hiring them the usual way takes months. CHI Software offers a faster path for CTOs and VP Engineering leaders – FDE as a Service.

When you hire forward deployed engineers from CHI, you get senior, hands-on builders who join your team, sit close to your stakeholders, and move blocked work into production. They are customer-facing and client-facing by default, so the person writing the code is the same person framing the problem with your product owners.

A forward deployed engineer is embedded in your environment. They read your codebase, map your technical architecture, and take clear ownership of outcomes rather than tickets. That mix of engineering depth and direct communication is what stalled AI initiatives and aging platforms need most. If you are working out how to hire forward deployed engineers for a specific delivery challenge, the sections below cover the outcomes they produce, the engagement models we support, and how we match you with the right person.

Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) as a Service

Hiring a senior engineer with production AI or modernization experience takes months. Browse vetted FDE profiles and get someone into your team in days.

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Meet Our Forward Deployed Engineers

Senior AI & MLOps Forward Deployed Engineer - Oleksii K.

Specialization: Enterprise AI Deployment, Agentic AI, MLOps, LLM Fine-Tuning
Seniority level and years of professional experience: Senior / Staff (10+ years of professional experience).
Key Technologies: Python, PyTorch, LangChain, LlamaIndex, AWS Bedrock, Kubernetes, MLflow, Docker
Technical Expertise: Transitioning complex GenAI and LLM prototypes into production, building RAG systems, latency optimization, setting up monitoring, and automated pipelines. Extensive experience in agentic AI development services projects.
Industry Experience: FinTech, E-commerce, HealthTech.
Time Zone Overlap: EU / US East.
Engagement Model: Full-time / Dedicated FDE.

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Lead Legacy Modernization & Integration FDE - Dmytro V.

Specialization: Legacy Software Modernization, Enterprise Integration, API Architecture.
Seniority level and years of professional experience: Lead (12+ years of professional experience).
Key Technologies: Java/Spring Boot, .NET Core, Microservices, Kafka, REST/gRPC API, PostgreSQL, Azure.
Technical Expertise: Step-by-step breaking down legacy monoliths into microservices without business disruption, building data pipelines, implementing high-load enterprise integrations, and establishing knowledge transfer systems. Experience in delivering legacy software modernization services.
Industry Experience: Banking, Logistics, Telecom.
Time Zone Overlap: EU / US East & Central.
Engagement Model: Full-time / Project-based.

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Senior Data & Cloud Architecture Forward Deployed Engineer - Iryna M.

Specialization: Cloud Infrastructure, Big Data Pipelines, Platform Engineering.
Seniority level and years of professional experience: Senior (8+ years of professional experience)
Key Technologies: Snowflake, Databricks, Apache Spark, GCP, AWS, Terraform, Python, SQL.
Technical Expertise: Designing highly scalable data warehouses, automating ETL/ELT pipelines, optimizing cloud costs, and building infrastructure to meet enterprise integration requirements.
Industry Experience: Retail, Media & Entertainment, SaaS.
Time Zone Overlap: EU / UK / US East.
Engagement Model: Full-time / Part-time.

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Senior Embedded & Edge AI Forward Deployed Engineer - Taras S.

Specialization: Edge AI, IoT Integration, Low-latency Software
Seniority level and years of professional experience: Senior (9 years of professional experience).
Key Technologies: C/C++, Rust, Python, TensorRT, Linux Embedded, ROS, MQTT.
Technical Expertise: Embedded AI deployment on Edge devices, optimizing computer vision algorithms for hardware constraints, active stakeholder collaboration, and cross-functional teamwork.
Industry Experience: Automotive, Industrial Automation, Agriculture.
Time Zone Overlap: EU / US East.
Engagement Model: Full-time / FDE Pod.

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What Our Forward Deployed Engineers Can Help You Deliver

The work of a forward-deployed engineer must be measurable. In other words, the substance of the result is more important than the activity itself. Our FDEs have a broad range of specializations. This is where we deliver tangible results for CTOs: taking artificial intelligence beyond the proof-of-concept stage, accelerating the rollout of new features, integrating new developments into existing systems, and reducing the scope of refinements.

Crucially, reducing technical debt is a primary outcome of our FDE projects, not just a passive side effect. Through structured modernization, our engineers directly elevate core DORA metrics — significantly boosting Deployment Frequency while driving down the Change Failure Rate. Utilizing proven architectural patterns like the Strangler Fig, our FDEs systematically replace legacy modules with modern components without disrupting continuous deployment cycles or active enterprise operations.

Each area of focus = a specific result. And your management will certainly appreciate it!

Enterprise AI and Prototype-to-Production Delivery

It’s a long way from a promising demo to a fully-fledged service. Some AI projects get stuck right in the middle – somewhere between the demo and “ready to go”. So what are the engineers at CHI Software doing to ensure this journey can be completed without any stumbling blocks? They build data pipelines, deploy AI models, develop evaluation and cost-control systems, and implement production-grade security mechanisms.

As a result, the project smoothly progresses from prototype to a fully functional service – in a matter of weeks. And the responsibility for what ultimately reaches users is clearly defined. Latest Anthropic and OpenAI FDE job specs require production-grade evaluation framework experience — building evals that catch hallucinations and regressions before they hit users. CHI FDEs bring this non-negotiable skill, not just RAG pipeline deployment. For European deployments, production-grade also means regulation-grade: technical documentation, logging, and transparency controls that pass compliance review without stalling the launch.

Enterprise System, API and Data Integration

New features rarely fail on their own logic. They fail at the seams. Our engineers own enterprise integration and API integration work, building data pipelines that connect modern services to systems that predate them. This is the enterprise software implementation that keeps a rollout from collapsing the week before launch.

Custom Software Development

When you need capacity, not just advice, our engineers write and ship features alongside your team. They work as cross-functional contributors: senior developers, and the coders and programmers who pair with your people and leave the codebase cleaner than they found it.

Cloud, DevOps and MLOps Enablement

The environment is critical for delivery. Speed depends on it. To maximize speed, our engineers apply their expertise to your system — specifically, by configuring and optimizing your cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, and monitoring across all your environments. After these interventions, releases become routine procedures. For AI workloads, we implement MLOps. This means we perform reproducible training, automated evaluation, and provide the ability to monitor models in a production environment.

Legacy Software Modernization

Aging systems are the most common source of delivery bottlenecks and execution gaps we see. Rather than a risky rewrite, our engineers modernize in slices, keeping the business running while the architecture improves. For the full picture of scope and method, see our legacy software modernization services.

When to Hire a Forward Deployed Engineer

Teams usually start asking how to hire forward deployed engineers at a few recognizable moments. The choice to hire FDE engineer support tends to follow one of the signals below, when senior ownership is missing and delivery has slowed.

Your AI Project Cannot Move Beyond the Prototype
You have a model that works in a notebook. The blocker is usually AI model deployment, data quality, or architecture, not the model itself. A forward deployed engineer validates the direction and builds the path to production.
Legacy Systems or Complex Integrations Are Delaying Delivery
In our experience, delivery speed is hindered by legacy systems in 60% of cases. The presence of integration debt determines your development plan. In this case, you can turn to an engineer who can untangle the API integrations and data pipelines that are constantly delaying the release of updates.
Your Internal Team Lacks Production Engineering Expertise
When your team has a solid grasp of the product’s logic but lacks experience in deploying new features, you’ll need some help. You should reach out to an experienced engineer who understands observability, deployment security, and infrastructure. This tactical move will help fill the experience gap without requiring a permanent hire.
A Strategic Initiative Has No Clear Technical Owner
The initiative matters, but no one senior owns it end to end. Work spreads across people who each hold one piece. A forward deployed engineer gives you clear accountability and a single point of technical ownership.
Customer-Specific Requirements Are Slowing Growth
The market dictates changes, and corporate clients pass these changes on to you. And there are many of them. In this case, a customer-facing engineer can help structure the request. They are responsible for gathering requirements and defining problems directly with the client, and then implementing these changes. This allows you to stay on track with your core development plan.
You Need Senior Engineering Support Without a Long Hiring Cycle
Recruiting a senior engineer takes months and a full-time headcount you may not want. This is the most common reason teams hire forward deployed engineers: senior capacity in days, scaled up or down as the work changes. Furthermore, with the total compensation for an in-house FDE reaching $300k–$550k, partnering with CHI Software delivers the same level of senior expertise without the high overhead or risks of growing your internal headcount.

An AI prototype that cannot reach production usually has an architecture problem, not a model problem. Get a senior FDE to validate the direction before the next build cycle.

Put a Senior FDE on Your Blocked Initiative

Choose the Right Forward Deployed Engineering Engagement Model

CHI’s forward deployed engineers for hire come in three engagement shapes. Whether you hire FDE engineer support for one initiative or several, pick a model based on delivery risk, how much ownership you want to keep, and your timeline. CHI Software 2026 supports both staff augmentation and flexible enterprise cooperation, and these flexible engagement models mean you are never locked into more than the work requires.

Dedicated Forward Deployed Engineer
This model involves having one senior engineer join your team full-time. He or she oversees the resolution of the problem from the moment it is identified until the project is handed off. When should you choose this approach? When you have a single, particularly important initiative that requires constant oversight and a deep understanding of the context.
Forward Deployed Engineering Pod
A small cross-functional group, for example an AI engineer, an integration specialist, and a DevOps engineer, working as one unit. Best for larger programs where enterprise software implementation spans several systems at once.
Fixed-Scope or Time-Bound Engagement
A defined outcome, a defined budget, a defined end date. Teams that hire FDE engineer profiles for a fixed scope get a clear statement of work and reduced delivery risk. Best for a known deliverable such as a migration or a specific AI feature.

Your team knows the legacy system. An FDE brings the modernization expertise to move it forward without stopping delivery.

Request a Modernization FDE

How We Match You With the Right FDE

If you are still working out how to hire forward deployed engineers, our process is structured and low-risk for a technical buyer: four steps, with no long commitment before you have seen someone work.

Define Your Requirements A short intake call covers your stack, your domain, the problem, and the outcome you need. Before you hire FDE engineer talent, we turn that into a clear brief so the match is about fit, not just availability.
Review Matched Engineers You get a shortlist of profiles that match your technology and industry, each with real project history. No resume flood, no filler.
Interview the Selected Candidates You interview the engineers yourself. Technical vetting on our side means you are assessing fit and communication, not screening for basic competence.
Onboard and Scale the Engagement Onboarding starts in days. As the work grows or shrinks, you add or release engineers, so team enablement tracks the actual roadmap, not a fixed headcount.

How Our Forward Deployed Engineers Work

Our delivery motion starts with understanding, not code. An engineer earns the right to build by first proving they understand the business and the system.

Discover the Business Problem and Technical Environment
First, we conduct a technical discovery. Our engineers map out your systems, environments, and constraints. We conduct a thorough requirements gathering process in collaboration with those responsible for the final result.
Validate the Solution Direction
Before a large build, the engineer proposes a direction and tests it. Solution design and solution validation happen against your real constraints, so you approve an approach you trust rather than discovering problems mid-project.
Build, Integrate and Deploy
In-house development. What an engineer does at this stage: delivers code that is ready for use in a production environment, ensures integration with existing systems, and oversees the deployment through to a controlled launch.
Optimization and Knowledge Transfer
It’s up and running. What’s next? The work involves evaluating and transferring knowledge. This includes optimizing productivity and costs, monitoring the production environment, and ensuring a structured transfer of knowledge. In other words, everything needed so that your team can maintain and expand on what’s been built after you leave.

Forward Deployed Engineer vs. Other Technical Roles

It’s easy to confuse the role of a forward deployed engineer with other roles that have similar-sounding titles. The difference lies in responsibility for the project, proximity to your team, the depth of integration, and who takes responsibility when the system reaches actual users. Let’s compare:

*Role*	*Proximity to your team*	*Integration depth*	*Accountability for production*
Forward deployed engineer	Embedded and client-facing	Owns integration end to end	Full accountability for the production outcome
Software engineer	Usually inside a vendor team	Builds assigned components	Accountable for their code, not the whole outcome
Solutions architect	Advisory, low proximity	Designs, rarely implements	Accountable for the technical architecture, not delivery
Solutions engineer	Pre-sales facing	Demos and proofs of concept	Accountable for the sale, not production
Technical consultant	Advisory and time-boxed	Recommends, then hands off	Accountable for advice, not results
Staff augmentation developer	Inside your team	Builds assigned tasks	Accountable for tasks, with limited ownership

Our Forward Deployed Engineering Case Studies

All cases

modernizing digital assessment platform for schools

Digital Assessment Platform Modernization

With AI scoring, advanced analytics, and LMS integration, CHI Software helped an EdTech provider turn its legacy system into a smart, scalable assessment platform.

Enterprise Portal for an Engineering Company

Our client is a manufacturing solutions provider with over 260,000 employees across 100 locations in 30 countries.

Generative AI Platform for Agent Orchestration

A modular generative AI platform built to orchestrate autonomous AI agents across multiple AI models and foundation models.

Although the development process is ongoing, the travel agency notes that the CHI Software team is attentive and receptive to ideas. The client also commends the team's communication style and availability, as well as their business-oriented approach to the project.

Pavlo Golovnenko

CEO at Piligrim

Working with CHI Software has been a game-changer for Vodafone's insurance program. The platform they developed allows our managers to issue insurance policies and process payouts in a few minutes. This efficiency level keeps our sales teams and customers delighted, enhancing overall satisfaction and streamlining our operations. We’re thrilled with this collaboration and the tangible results it has delivered

Olena Myronenko

Director at VF Retail LLC

At Travel Insurer, we’ve trusted CHI Software as our technology partner from the very beginning—they built our platform, and now they’ve taken it to the next level with an AI-powered assistant. Their expertise in NLP and intelligent automation has made customer interactions smoother, faster, and more intuitive. This innovation is a game-changer for how we serve travelers, and we’re excited to keep pushing boundaries together with CHI Software.

Vitaliy Melnychuk

CMO at Travel Insurer

Our Forward Deployed Engineering Expertise

AI and Agentic AI Technologies
LLM:
- Anthropic Claude
- Google Gemini Pro
- Mistral
- Grok
- Llama
- Gemma
- AWS Bedrock (foundation models)
- OpenAI
Frameworks:
- LangChain
- LangGraph
- LlamaIndex
- DSPy
- PyTorch
- TensorFlow
- Hugging Face
AI Agents:
- Claude Agent SDK
- MCP
- LangСhain agents
- CrewAI 1.4
- AutoGen
- Google ADK
Application Engineering
Backend
- Node.js
- Python
- R
- .NET
- Java
Frontend
- TypeScript
- React
- Next.js
- Vue
- Angular
Python Frameworks
- FastAPI
- Flask
- Django
Cloud and Platform Engineering
- AWS
- Microsoft Azure
- Google Cloud
- Terraform
- Ansible
Data and Integration Technologies
- PostgreSQL
- MySQL
- MongoDB
- Big Query
- Redshift
- Synapse
- Apache Kafka
- Snowflake
- Databricks
DevOps, MLOps, and Observability
- Kubernetes
- Docker
- Helm
- OpenShift
- Jenkins
- GitHub Actions
- GitLab CI
- Azure DevOps
- Flux
- Prometheus
- Grafana
- Datadog
- New Relic
- ELK stack

Why Hire Forward Deployed Engineers From CHI Software

The last question is simple: why CHI instead of hiring internally or using a generalist vendor? The short answer to how to hire forward deployed engineers well is to work with a partner who can cover AI and modernization at once, scale on demand, deliver securely, and hand the work back cleanly. Here are the reasons to hire FDE engineer support from CHI.

Senior Engineers With Production Experience

Every one of our forward deployed engineers for hire has shipped production systems. You are not funding on-the-job training; you are buying judgment that only comes from having run things at scale.

AI, Data, Cloud and Modernization Expertise

Few vendors are equally strong at production AI and at legacy software modernization. CHI is, which matters when your hardest initiatives sit exactly where those two meet.

Broader Engineering Support and Flexible Scaling

Behind each engineer sits a larger bench of developers, coders, and programmers across the stack that you can pull in as scope grows. These flexible engagement models let you scale up for a push and back down afterward.

Secure and Vendor-Neutral Delivery

Security and independence are contractual, not promises. Work happens under NDA and a clear IP agreement, with vendor-neutral, open standards so nothing locks you in. CHI holds ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certifications.

EU AI Act and GDPR-Ready Engineering

Enterprise AI in Europe now ships under regulation, not just deadlines. Our forward deployed engineers build the artifacts the EU AI Act expects as part of delivery, not as an afterthought: risk-tier mapping, technical documentation, event logging and traceability, human-oversight controls, and the transparency features already in force — AI-interaction disclosure and synthetic-content labeling.

Data handling follows GDPR by default: data processing agreements, data minimization, EU data residency options, and no client data used for model training. Regulatory timelines have shifted once already; audit-ready engineering is what keeps you covered either way.

Nearshore Delivery in European Time Zones

CHI’s FDE bench works from Europe in CET/EET, with real-time overlap with EU teams and 4–6 shared hours with the US East Coast daily. Contracts, NDAs, and DPAs are structured for European buyers, and deployments can stay entirely within your EU cloud environment. You get an embedded engineer in your morning standup — without the time-zone lag or compliance friction of offshore delivery.

Client-Facing Collaboration and Structured Handoff

Our engineers are client-facing and built for stakeholder collaboration, so the person doing the work talks to your team directly. At the end, structured knowledge transfer means your people own what was delivered.

Not sure which profile fits your project? Share your stack and delivery challenge and get a matched shortlist in 48 hours.

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FAQ

How Quickly Can a Forward Deployed Engineer Join a Project?

For most stacks, a matched engineer starts within days of your intake call, not the weeks or months a direct hire takes. When you hire FDE engineer support through CHI, the profiles are pre-vetted, so the slow part is your interview, not our sourcing.
How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Forward Deployed Engineer?

Cost depends on seniority, engagement model, and time commitment. A fixed-scope engagement gives you a set budget up front, while a dedicated engineer is billed monthly. This is one of the first questions in how to hire forward deployed engineers, and we give you a clear number before you commit.
How Do You Vet Forward Deployed Engineers?

All forward deployed engineers for hire go through the same technical vetting: hands-on assessment of engineering skill, plus a review of communication and client-facing ability, since the role is customer-facing by design.
What Happens if the Engineer Is Not the Right Fit?

If the match is wrong, we replace the engineer quickly, with knowledge transfer to the incoming person so you keep momentum. You are never stuck with a bad placement.
Can an FDE Work With Our Existing Technology Stack?

Yes. We collect information about your tech stack to match you with the right specialists. The engineer is already familiar with your technologies, so it’s easy for them to adapt to your environments and tools.
Can a Forward Deployed Engineer Work With Our Internal Team?

That is the norm. An FDE is embedded and cross-functional, pairing with your developers, joining your standups, and working inside your process rather than beside it.
How Do You Protect Sensitive Data and System Access?

Access follows least privilege, work is covered by NDA and a data processing agreement, and CHI’s ISO 27001 practices govern how systems and data are handled. Access can be scoped to exactly what the engagement needs.
What Is the Minimum Engagement Duration?

It depends on the model. Fixed-scope work runs as long as the deliverable needs. Dedicated and pod engagements typically start at a month, then continue month to month.
Can We Replace or Add Engineers During the Engagement?

Yes. It is precisely because of this flexibility that most teams choose the FDE model. If your scope of work expands, you can add specialists to the team. If your needs change, you can reduce the number of engineers or replace them if the project’s focus shifts. At the same time, there’s always a structured handover of responsibilities to ensure the project implementation process doesn’t stall. This is a practical solution to the question of how to hire on-site engineers without a lengthy recruitment cycle.
Can Your Forward Deployed Engineers Help With EU AI Act Compliance?

Yes. For AI systems that may fall under the EU AI Act, our engineers implement the technical side of compliance during delivery: classifying the system against the Act’s risk tiers, producing technical documentation, building event logging and human-oversight controls, and adding the transparency features the Act requires, such as disclosing AI interactions and labeling generated content. Your legal or compliance team defines the obligations; our FDEs make the system meet them.

Hire Forward Deployed Engineers