AWS, Anthropic race to deploy army of specialized engineers key to proving AI spending will pay off
AWS, Anthropic, OpenAI and Google are racing to build forward deployed engineering teams as companies seek returns on their AI investments.
Key points
- AWS, OpenAI, Anthropic and others are investing billions to build specialized AI deployment engineers called FDEs.
- US job postings for FDEs surged from under 200 in 2023 to over 7,300 in the first nine months of 2026.
- Early FDE projects show productivity gains but no confirmed financial returns on AI investment.
Big Tech companies are spending billions to build a workforce of specialized AI engineers known as forward deployed engineers (FDEs). These engineers work directly with corporate customers to turn AI experiments into usable business applications. The push comes as market concerns grow that AI spending may not pay off.
Amazon Web Services has committed $1 billion to an FDE initiative. OpenAI launched a deployment business with over $4 billion in initial investment. Anthropic is investing $100 million to train 10,000 FDEs by the end of 2027. Accenture and Google Cloud are building a 1,000-person FDE workforce.
Rising demand for FDEs
US job postings for FDEs jumped from fewer than 200 in 2023 to about 1,200 in 2025 and more than 7,300 in the first nine months of 2026, according to Lightcast. The median advertised salary reached $195,456, up 40% from 2023 and more than three times the median across all US job postings.
Consulting firms are among the biggest recruiters. Lightcast counted 872 unique FDE postings from Deloitte and 688 from Accenture in the first nine months of 2026, followed by Google with 499 and KPMG with 447.
The Street is starting to become impatient with these billions of companies who are spending on AI without getting any business outcomes
— Jeff Christian, founder of executive search firm Christian & Timbers
Training and early results
AWS is building its own FDE organization, starting with hundreds of engineers. OpenAI agreed to acquire Tomoro, an applied AI consulting firm expected to bring about 150 FDEs. Anthropic's residency program, modeled on medical education, aims to train 10,000 FDEs by 2027, with first credentials expected in early 2027.
Early deployments show productivity improvements but not financial returns. At PennyMac, some engineering tasks were completed up to six times faster. A Caylent project for Smarsh freed an estimated $5 million to $10 million in engineering and product capacity, though the figure does not isolate FDE contributions or represent cash savings.
