A forward deployed engineer builds and runs the system inside your company until the work changes. A consultant studies the problem and recommends what to do, and someone else usually builds it. A solutions engineer helps you evaluate and buy a product, mostly before the contract is signed. They solve different problems, so the useful question is which one your situation needs.

The three roles side by side

	Forward deployed engineer	Consultant	Solutions engineer
Main job	Get a system into daily use and keep it working	Decide what should change and how	Show that a product fits and help close the sale
When they work	After the decision, through launch and after	Before the build	Before and around the sale
Where they work	On site, with the people who do the work	With leadership, in workshops and interviews	With your evaluation team, often remote
What you get	Working software in production	A recommendation, a roadmap or a business case	A demo, a proof of concept, answers on fit
How success is judged	Whether the work meets an agreed standard	Whether the plan is accepted	Whether you buy
What is left for you	The decisions, and running it or not	Building, running and proving it	Everything after the contract

Forward deployed engineer

A forward deployed engineer works inside the customer’s company. They map how the work runs, connect the systems it depends on, build and test the agents or software, and stay until it holds up in daily use. The role started at Palantir and spread across AI in 2026, when model labs, cloud providers and consultancies all launched forward deployed teams. Our map of forward deployed AI companies lists who offers it, and what is forward deployed engineering covers the buyer’s side in full.

Consultant

A consultant is good at deciding where AI should go: which processes, in what order, with what business case. The output is a plan. The build usually goes to an integrator or an internal team, and the running to whoever is left. That split is where many AI projects stall, because nobody owns the gap between the plan and the work in use. Some consultancies have started forward deployed practices of their own, so ask who builds and who stays. We compare the two models in Ortelian vs AI consultancies.

Solutions engineer

A solutions engineer works for a vendor and helps you decide whether its product fits: demos, technical questions, a proof of concept. They know the product well and usually move on once you buy. If you are still choosing a tool, talk to one. If you have chosen and nothing has changed in the work, a solutions engineer is not the role you are missing.

Forward deployed engineer vs software engineer

Both write production code. A software engineer at a product company builds features for many customers and rarely meets most of them. A forward deployed engineer builds for one customer at a time, inside that customer, and spends much of the week with people who are not engineers. What they learn on site often feeds back into the product.

A platform plus a forward deployed team

There is a fourth option, and it is how Ortelian works: a platform plus a forward deployed team. The team works on site to redesign the work, and the platform is what the agents run on afterwards. We work on site not because our product needs it, but because your company does. AI has the most impact when the work itself changes, and that takes time with the people who do it.

After launch, your team runs it or we keep running it for you. Either way, we host and operate the platform, in the EU. Inside an engagement, your own agents can use the platform through scoped tools we set up for you. More on the model on how we work and AI-native deployment partner.

Which one do you need?

Your situation	Who to bring in
You don’t know yet where AI should go in the company	A consultant, or an audit that ends in a concrete first build
You are choosing between AI tools	The vendors’ solutions engineers
You know what should change, and need it built and running	Forward deployed engineers
You have engineers with time to sit with the team	Your own team, with the steps in how to deploy AI agents
You want the work changed and a platform someone else hosts	A platform plus a forward deployed team

If you have the engineers and the time, building in-house can work well. We compare that route in Ortelian vs building in-house.

Questions people ask

Is a forward deployed engineer a consultant?

Not in the usual sense. A consultant recommends and a forward deployed engineer builds and stays. The two overlap when a consultancy runs its own forward deployed practice, or when a forward deployed team starts with an audit, as we do.

Is a forward deployed engineer the same as a solutions engineer?

No. A solutions engineer works before the sale to show a product fits. A forward deployed engineer works after it, inside the customer, until the system runs in production.

Why not hire forward deployed engineers ourselves?

You can. The hard part is less the hiring than having a platform for the agents to run on and the time to redesign the work before automating it. See redesign the work before you automate it.