Amazon Web Services is investing $1 billion to establish a new Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) organization that will place AI engineers directly inside customer organizations, serving a growing demand from companies that need more expertise to move AI projects into production more quickly.
The new business unit will deploy thousands of engineers who will work alongside customer business and engineering teams to build and implement AI systems using enterprise data and operational processes. Rather than operating as a traditional consulting engagement, AWS said the teams will transfer technical expertise to customers so they can continue operating and expanding AI systems independently after projects conclude.
The FDE initiative serves companies that want to redesign business processes around agentic AI. AWS said deployments that previously required months can now be completed in days through a combination of AI-assisted software development and engineers working with customer teams.
Small Teams, Short Engagements
AWS will initially send small engineering groups of roughly five or six people into customer sites for engagements lasting about 45 days. Success will be measured by how quickly customers can launch new AI capabilities and develop in-house expertise rather than by the length of the engagement.
AWS plans to staff the organization with thousands of employees, filling positions through both external hiring and internal transfers. The expansion comes even as Amazon has eliminated more than 30,000 corporate positions since late 2022, making FDE one of the company’s key areas of hiring.
The FDE strategy is gaining adoption in the tech sector. Palantir popularized the FDE model more than a decade ago, while OpenAI and Anthropic both introduced dedicated deployment organizations earlier this year. Salesforce and Google Cloud also offer comparable services.
Demand for these roles has risen sharply. According to LinkedIn data cited by AWS, demand for forward deployed engineers and related positions increased 42-fold between 2023 and 2025.
AWS said engineers in the new organization will also work with AI agents throughout the software development lifecycle. The company described a development process in which AI systems assist with implementation while engineers provide oversight and validation. AWS said this approach allows projects to be completed faster than conventional software development methods.
Another focus is ensuring customers retain the knowledge developed during each engagement. AWS said projects will include documentation, architectural guidance, operational runbooks and governed knowledge graphs stored within customers’ AWS environments.
AWS said customers already working with FDE teams include the Allen Institute, Cox Automotive, the NBA, the NFL, Ricoh and Southwest Airlines.
