Talk:Forward deployed engineer

Is this a necessary page?

The seems to be not belong as its own page. Blazing234 (talk) 20:26, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

@Blazing234 I agree, if "software engineer" doesn't even have its own page, this specialization should not either. ~2026-31796-07 (talk) 23:14, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

"Software engineering" has his page, that is the reason why "software engineer" doesn't need one.

"Forward Deployed Engineer" is a new role becomming more popular (look it up in Google Trends). It was a specialized term of Palantir, but is now used from several AI companies - it should be in Wikipedia. MacCopper (talk) 11:14, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Does everything panitir do deserve its own page?

It seems redundant and should be a redirect. Blazing234 (talk) 04:02, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Amazon

They call it frontier teams~2026-38073-05 (talk) 06:41, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

So if multiple companies are calling it different things why is this page even here?

It seems the only difference between this and other classic roles is it's focused on AI implementation, which to me doesn't mean it should have a page.

Or why not have a frontier teams wiki page too? Blazing234 (talk) 20:44, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

The old version of the article was LLM-generated and didn't say much. I've updated it based on actual sources. Take another look? Dreamyshade (talk) 20:22, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

I am still not seeing the point of the page when this isn't a new job. Just because the line of business changes, doesn't mean it's new. Blazing234 (talk) 16:55, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

One of the key criteria for whether to make an article about something is whether there's substantial secondary coverage about it in reliable sources (Wikipedia:Notability), and there are multiple articles on this term from WSJ, NYT, Reuters, etc. I do think it's important though to point out in this article how it relates to previous similar roles. Dreamyshade (talk) 20:27, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Proposed: add a History section

The article currently has no history or etymology coverage — every source cited is from 2022 or later, which makes it read as if the role appeared out of nowhere. I'd like to propose adding a short History section using the sources below. Posting here first rather than editing directly, since this would meaningfully expand the article.

Proposed text and sources (solid — independent, contemporary, or primary-about-itself):

The earliest identified public use of the exact phrase "forward-deployed engineer" is a July 2009 article in Science magazine, which identifies two named Palantir employees by that title. A June 2010 TechCrunch profile of the company independently uses the same title for another employee.

In April 2019, Palantir published a blog post distinguishing two internal engineering tracks: "Delta," which corresponds to the forward deployed role and is responsible for one customer across many capabilities, and "Dev" (Product Development), responsible for one capability across many customers. The post states the "Delta" name originated from NATO phonetic-alphabet naming conventions used by early Business Development teams, and describes a review process by which locally-developed work can be generalized into the core product.

Weaker tier — usable only with clear attribution, and I'd understand if editors want these left out:

Palantir executive Shyam Sankar has written that he began doing this kind of customer-facing deployment work as early as 2006 and coined the internal term "forward deployed engineering" in 2007, though no contemporaneous document confirming the 2007 date has been publicly identified. This is a first-person account published on Piratewires, a site with financial and personal ties to Palantir's own investor network, so it should be attributed explicitly as Sankar's own account rather than stated as fact.

Happy to adjust scope or drop the weaker tier entirely if others feel it's too thin. — Integrate-by-parts (talk) 20:19, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

@Integrate-by-parts I appreciate that you offered a suggestion, but please see WP:LLMCOMM - can you rewrite this suggestion in your own words? That guideline goes along with the WP:NOLLM guideline for article text, and both are very important to learn about and keep in mind as a new editor. Thank you! Dreamyshade (talk) 21:30, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Sounds good, and thanks for the guidance here! Integrate-by-parts (talk) 23:55, 18 September 2026 (UTC)