July 2026
1
Andrew Ng highlights the emergence of a new role gaining traction in Silicon Valley: the AI Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE). This position involves engineers being embedded directly within client organizations to help customize AI solutions, including building and tuning agentic workflows tailored to each client's specific needs. The role reflects the growing demand for hands-on AI implementation expertise as companies increasingly adopt agent-based AI systems but require specialized support to adapt them to their unique operational contexts.