Everybody is talking about Forward Deployed Engineers. Everybody is hiring them too. At Decision Foundry, our teams have always worked this way, embedded inside your operations, working with your data, your tools, and your people. Not from the outside looking in.
We've been doing this for over 20 years. Only now, it's 3X more powerful because our engineers don't just surface insights anymore. They understand your workflows from the inside, identify where things are breaking, and build AI-powered solutions that act on it.
Our Approach
Most consulting engagements work at arm's length. A team comes in, gathers requirements, builds to a specification, and leaves. What gets built matches the brief but rarely matches the reality of how your business actually operates.
The FDE model is different because the engineer never leaves.
A Decision Foundry FDE (Forward Deployed Engineer) is a dedicated team member assigned directly to your organisation. They sit within your systems, attend your team's meetings, and work alongside your people day to day. They know your data better than any external consultant ever could because they're not external. They become part of your operation.
Because they're inside your world, they don't just see the problem you described. They see the problems you didn't know to report, the manual workarounds, the approval flows happening in side channels, the reports nobody trusts, the tools that went live but never got adopted. And because they understand the full picture, the solutions they design are built on reality, not assumptions.
The result isn't a platform delivered to spec. It's a solution designed around what your organisation actually needs to move faster, decide better, and waste less time.
The Process
Getting started with the FDE model is straightforward. Here's what the journey looks like from first conversation to ongoing impact:
We start with a free discovery call to understand your business, your current tools, and where you feel the most friction. No commitment required. This session helps us understand whether the FDE model is the right fit and what an engagement would look like for your team.
We assign a dedicated FDE or team to your organisation, who will integrate into your workflows, attending standups, reviewing systems, and interacting with stakeholders. The goal is not to gather requirements, but to build a complete picture of where time is lost, data is not trusted, and decisions are delayed. This intelligence then drives what we build. A solution designed around the outcomes you need: faster pipeline visibility, fewer manual steps, higher adoption — AI-powered automation that fits you.
Your dedicated expert team leads the build, whether that's a Salesforce configuration, a Tableau dashboard, an AI agent, a data pipeline, or a combination. Because they've been inside your operations from the start, what gets built is used. Adoption isn't an afterthought. It's designed in from day one.
The FDE doesn't hand over a finished product and disappear. They stay embedded, monitor performance, refine as your needs evolve, and continue to surface new opportunities to save time or improve decisions. The model is designed for the long term — not a one-time project.
Why It Works
Because your FDE is embedded from day one, there's no lengthy discovery phase, no back-and-forth briefing process, and no gap between what was specified and what gets built. Solutions are designed and delivered faster because the context is already there.
Most implementations fail not because the technology is wrong, but because it was never designed around how real people work. FDEs build from the inside out — which means what gets built fits naturally into your team's day, and adoption follows.
An external consultant can only solve the problems you describe. An embedded FDE sees everything — the workarounds, the side channels, the untrusted reports, the manual steps nobody bothered to document. They solve the real problem, not just the stated one.
Your FDE doesn't just build reports. They identify where AI agents, automated workflows, and intelligent systems can remove friction and they build them directly into your operations. Not as a separate project. As part of the work.
With a dedicated FDE, there’s no knowledge loss between engagements, no re-explaining context to a new team, and no “that’s out of scope.” Your FDE carries the full picture of your data, your tools, and your business and applies it every day.
Decision Foundry has been embedding engineers inside customer organisations for over two decades. We didn't discover this model when it became a trend. We built it and we've refined it across hundreds of engagements in retail, healthcare, financial services, pharma, and more.
Want these benefits inside your organisation?
Talk to an FDE ExpertIs It Right for You?
The FDE model is designed for organisations that have already invested in the right tools and are still not getting the outcomes they expected.
It works especially well if any of these sound familiar:
You have Salesforce, Tableau, Power BI, or a modern data stack but your teams still work around them
Your dashboards exist but leadership doesn't trust them or act on them
Your analysts spend more time preparing data than analysing it
You've completed an implementation that went live, but adoption is still low
You need AI embedded into your workflows but don't know where to start
Your data is fragmented across systems, and nobody owns the full picture
You've worked with consultants before and felt like they never truly understood your business
If you're a media agency, marketing services firm, or data-intensive enterprise in retail, healthcare, financial services, or pharma, the FDE model was built for you.
The Difference
Traditional BI engagements are built around a brief. An FDE engagement is built around your reality. Here's what that looks like in practice:
| Traditional BI | The FDE Model | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting point | A written brief or statement of work | Deep immersion in your actual workflows |
| Team structure | Rotating consultants, handoff between phases | One dedicated engineer (or team) end-to-end |
| Discovery method | Requirements workshops and interviews | Embedded observation — your meetings, your tools, your data |
| What gets built | What was specified in the scope document | What your organisation actually needs to move faster |
| Post go-live | Handover documentation, then exit | Continuous optimisation, monitoring, and evolution |
| Adoption strategy | Training sessions after launch | Built into the solution from day one |
Most BI projects end at go-live. The platform is live, but the same inefficiencies continue inside it. Reps still update CRM manually. Analysts still clean spreadsheets before leadership meetings. Leaders still wait for last week's report to make today's decision.
The FDE model doesn't end at go-live. Because the engineer is embedded, they see what's not working after launch and fix it. Continuously.
Why Us
Forward Deployed Engineering became a buzzword in 2023. We've been doing it since 2004.
Over 20 years, Decision Foundry has embedded engineers inside some of the most data-complex organisations in retail, healthcare, financial services, pharma, and media. We've seen every version of the problem — the untrusted dashboards, the underused platforms, the AI pilots that never left the lab — and we've built the methodology to solve it.
We're not a generalist consultancy that added FDE to our service list. It's how we've always worked. Our engineers become part of your team, speak your language, and stay long enough to make things actually change.
We are also a certified Salesforce partner, Databricks Premier Partner, Snowflake Select Partner, SOC 2 compliant, and GDPR capable, which means the solutions we build aren't just embedded in your operations, they're built to enterprise standard from day one.
Investment
The FDE model is engagement-based and scoped to your organisation's size, complexity, and goals. Here's a general guide to what engagements look like:
Organisations that have identified one or two operational pain points and want to see what the FDE model produces before a broader commitment
$5K – $10K / month
Organisations that want to redesign an entire workflow across multiple business units with a dedicated embedded team
$10K – $20K / month
Organisations with complex multi-system environments, multiple business units, or a need for AI and data transformation across the whole organisation
Reach out for more details
All engagements begin with a free 30-minute discovery call, no commitment required. We'll assess your current setup, identify your highest-impact opportunity, and give you a clear picture of what an FDE engagement would look like for your organisation.
*Pricing is indicative. Final scope and investment are confirmed after the discovery session.
Common Questions
The FDE (Forward Deployed Engineer) Model is Decision Foundry's embedded engineering approach. We assign a dedicated engineer or team directly to your organisation — they sit within your systems, attend your standups, and work alongside your people every day instead of operating at arm's length. Because they understand the full picture of your workflows, the solutions they design are built around your reality, not a written brief.
Four phases. (1) A free discovery call to assess fit. (2) Embed, Map & Design — your FDE integrates into your day-to-day, surfaces where time, trust, or decisions are getting lost, and designs the solution from that intelligence. (3) Implementation — Salesforce config, dashboards, AI agents, data pipelines, or a combination, built for adoption. (4) Ongoing Optimisation — the FDE stays embedded long-term, refining as your needs evolve.
Traditional engagements work at arm's length: a team gathers requirements, builds to spec, and leaves. What gets built matches the brief but rarely matches reality. The FDE Model is different because the engineer never leaves. They live inside your operation, see the workarounds and untrusted reports first-hand, and build for adoption from day one. Traditional BI ends at go-live; FDE doesn't.
Engagements are tiered by scope. FDE Starter ($5K–$10K/month) suits organisations with one or two operational pain points who want to see the model produce results before broader investment. FDE Core ($10K–$20K/month) covers an entire workflow redesign with a dedicated embedded team. FDE Enterprise is custom-scoped for multi-system, multi-unit, or organisation-wide AI/data transformation. Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute discovery call.
The FDE Model extends, not replaces, what you already have. Many of our engagements augment internal teams scoped for steady-state work but lacking capacity for transformation, or that need specialist depth (AI agents, MCI, Data Cloud) their incumbent partner doesn't have. We can also work alongside your existing implementation partner on a specific workstream — your FDE focuses on the embedded, day-to-day work; the other partner handles project-style delivery.
Forward Deployed Engineering became a buzzword in 2023; we've been doing it since 2004. Over 20+ years we've embedded engineers in some of the most data-complex enterprises across retail, healthcare, financial services, pharma, and media. We're a Salesforce SELECT Partner, Databricks Premier Partner, and Snowflake Select Partner, SOC 2 compliant and GDPR capable — so what gets built embeds into your operations AND meets enterprise standards from day one.
The FDE model isn't a product you buy. It's a way of working that changes what's possible.
If you're ready to stop getting reports and start getting outcomes, let's talk.