$9B +
AI vendor bet
OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS, and Microsoft launched FDE businesses in 2026.
Source: CNBC, TechCrunch
Forward Deployed Engineer Training by Xebia Academy
Built and taught by Xebia’s Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs), who take AI into production for clients. The program develops engineers who stay accountable for whether the AI works after launch.
The Rise of the FDE
729%
The hiring rush
Rise in FDE job postings, year over year, April 2026.
Source: Indeed, via Business Insider
$173,816
The cost to hire
Median advertised FDE salary across 1,000 postings.
Source: Bloomberry
FDEs don't just build technology. They own business outcomes.
FDEs don't just build technology. They own business outcomes.
A Forward Deployed Engineer works where business, customer, consulting, engineering, and AI meet. They combine strong technical capability with business understanding and customer orientation, and they use that combination to move a problem from first understanding to a deployed solution in a real environment, not a demo.
Essential Capabilities of Forward Deployed Engineers
Discovery
Taking unmapped situations to guide business stakeholders through the process to achieve buildable outcomes. Unlike requirements gathering, there's no spec to read
Prototyping & Enterprise Integration
Building the parts that turn a prompt into a working AI-powered application: retrieval, evaluation, and deployment.
Business Ownership
Owning the business side directly to quantify the returns, sizing effort and risk, and holding the roadmap.
Most AI training stops at prompt engineering.
Most AI training stops at prompt engineering.
Built by practitioners who engineer and deploy technology in complex enterprise environments, Xebia’s FDE curriculum goes further, developing the technical, business, and customer-facing capabilities required to turn AI potential into working solutions.
Xebia FDE Training Program
Xebia’s FDE training curriculum builds a new capability designed for real-world impact. Every path ends the same way. Your team gets an engineer who owns the business outcome, not just the code. Choose the track or set of tracks that best aligns with your team’s goals.
Delivery FDE
Take AI-enabled solutions into production inside complex enterprise environments.
Topics you’ll explore
Software engineering & cloud
Build and integrate applications using cloud, containers and modern engineering practices.
Architecture, integration & DevOps
Connect services and systems; understand CI/CD and the path from code to production.
Data engineering & AI platforms
Work with data ingestion, lakehouse pipelines and the platforms that support AI.
Streaming, MLOps & governance
Understand data streaming, operationalizing ML workflows and managing data responsibly.
AI-assisted & agentic coding
Use AI-enabled development workflows to accelerate software engineering.
Path / format
Learning paths: Software Development / Engineering | Data & AI
Platform options: Platform-agnostic | Azure | AWS | Google Cloud
Outcome
Build and deploy production-ready solutions in complex enterprise environments.
AI FDE
Build, deploy and operationalize AI solutions for real customer problems.
Topics you’ll explore
Generative AI & agentic AI
Understand GenAI applications and workflows in which AI agents use tools to complete tasks.
RAG & AI application development
Build applications that retrieve relevant information and use it to generate grounded responses.
AI integration & deployment
Connect AI components to APIs, applications and enterprise workflows; deploy solutions.
Evaluation & testing
Assess output quality and test AI solutions systematically.
Guardrails & Responsible AI
Address safety, privacy, access control and responsible use of AI.
Path / format
Platform-agnostic: Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Airflow/Dagster, dbt and open-weight models.
Cloud-specific: Azure | AWS | Google Cloud
Outcome
Build and demonstrate deployed, evaluated AI solutions.
Domain FDE
Translate challenges into well-defined problems, solutions, and business outcomes.
Topics you’ll explore
Industry & business process understanding
Understand the industry context, business workflows and operational needs.
Problem discovery & consulting
Explore customer challenges, clarify requirements and frame the problem to solve.
Business value & outcome definition
Define success measures and connect solution choices to business impact.
Customer engagement
Work with customers to align on needs, expectations and practical solutions.
Stakeholder management
Build shared understanding across business and technology stakeholders.
Path / format
Learning journey: In development
Outcome
Bridge business needs and technology solutions through domain-led problem solving.
How We Deliver
How We Deliver
Built by practitioners who engineer and deploy technology in complex enterprise environments, Xebia’s FDE curriculum goes further, developing the technical, business, and customer-facing capabilities required to turn AI potential into working solutions.
1
Practitioner-built
Written by the people who build AI systems.
Role-specific, not generic
Distinct journey based on the capabilities your team needs to build.
2
3
Progressive, not one-off
Learning builds from your team’s existing capabilities toward applied FDE skills
Applied, not theoretical
Practical scenarios, projects, and real engineering challenges.
4
5
Scalable by design
Adaptable to your enterprise academies, transformation programs, and engineering teams.
Capability, not dependency
Designed to leave your organization with a durable internal capability.
6
Our Partners
Why leading enterprises train FDEs with Xebia
Xebia brings together 25 years of engineering and enterprise delivery with a long track record of developing tech talent.
We deploy FDEs, too
Our trainers also put these capabilities to work in client environments.
25 years of delivery excellence
Building and modernizing software since 2001.
1.3M+ people trained
Xebia Academy's track record across tech skills.
9.2/10 Learner feedback
From FDE program participants.
Any stack
We adapt tooling to your cloud and AI ecosystem
Shaped to your Industry
Practice is matched to your industry and governance.
Get started
Ready to build your team's FDE capability?
Tell us where your team is today, and we'll map the right entry point
across the three tracks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Contact
Let’s discuss how we can support your journey.