{"id":92735,"date":"2026-03-18T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=92735"},"modified":"2026-03-18T09:49:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T16:49:38","slug":"forward-deployed-engineers-making-ai-jobs-more-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/forward-deployed-engineers-making-ai-jobs-more-human\/","title":{"rendered":"How Forward Deployed Engineers Are Proving AI Makes Tech Jobs More Human"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sarah Khalid was three years into her career as a Success Architect at Salesforce when her team restructured and she found herself in a role she hadn’t planned on, couldn’t fully define, and wasn’t sure existed yet. \u201cI didn’t plan on becoming an FDE,\u201d she said. \u201cIt’s something that I grew into.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forward deployed engineers (FDEs) saw an 800% spike in job postings between January and September 2025, according to an analysis by Indeed and the Financial Times<\/a>, as companies adopt AI agents at breakneck speed but need expertise to actually deploy them. FDEs exist to close that gap. They code, consult, and translate agentic AI<\/a> into working solutions, often while sitting side by side with the customer. Similar to when Harvard Business Review deemed data scientist \u201cthe sexiest job of the 21st century<\/a>\u201d due to a rare combination of technical chops and business savvy, both roles prove that transformative technology doesn’t eliminate jobs. It creates entirely new ones we couldn’t have imagined a few years prior. Now history is repeating itself, just faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How do I know when AI is wrong, when AI is right, how it can solve the right problem? That truly is human-AI collaboration.<\/p>\nRuth Hickin, VP of Agentic Workforce Strategy and Innovation at Salesforce<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Remember when \u2018deployment\u2019 meant pushing code live?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For FDEs, it means packing a laptop and going to the client site. The distinction matters more than it sounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cImplementation teams build solutions,\u201d said Khalid, who is now an FDE Director at Salesforce. \u201cThe FDEs make sure those solutions drive value.\u201d A traditional engineer builds in isolation and hands the product off. FDEs don’t arrive with a checklist of predefined deliverables. They align to a customer’s business outcomes and stay accountable until those outcomes are met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruth Hickin, VP of Agentic Workforce Strategy and Innovation at Salesforce, frames what makes deploying agents different: \u201cThis is not a typical implementation of software. It’s really, how do we help people get the value and the outcomes of AI? Not just implement it but understand what problems they’re trying to solve.\u201d The result, as she describes it: \u201ckind of like hacker meets customer value meets professional services person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The skills that actually matter<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This hybrid mash-up of different roles mirrors Khalid’s path. Her move into the role from developer to architect to FDE wasn’t a straight line so much as a cumulative one. \u201c[My] developer side taught me depth, and the architect side taught me perspective,\u201d she said. \u201cThe FDE role combines both.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agentforce<\/a> demanded new skills too, she said. \u201cThe agentic platform itself is different. It’s not quite as black-and-white as coding. It’s a little bit more art and not as deterministic as writing code would be.\u201d Prompt engineering, instruction-writing, comfort with nondeterministic outputs were not in her prior toolkit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there was the pace. \u201cI was used to three releases a year,\u201d Khalid said. \u201cBut the pace of innovation with Agentforce is so much more: weekly, biweekly. A high ability to adapt isn’t a bonus quality for this role. It’s a baseline requirement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coding, as Khalid puts it, is \u201ctable stakes.\u201d What distinguishes strong FDEs are qualities that don’t show up cleanly on a r\u00e9sum\u00e9: judgment, pattern recognition, and the ability to deliver hard truths to C-suite stakeholders without alienating them. Not to mention, a learning mindset and the ability to share those learnings with others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hickin also frames human judgment as the key differentiator in a world of AI-generated output: \u201cHow do I know when AI is wrong, when AI is right, how it can solve the right problem? That truly is human-AI collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curiosity over credentials<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Salesforce tripled its FDE team in just six months, built from three internal teams: engineering, professional services, and customer success. That origin shapes what the company is actually looking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes you look at an FDE in the market and it feels like an engineering job, very, very technical,\u201d Hickin said. \u201cBut I do think it’s curiosity over credentials here [at Salesforce]. The most important thing is, can you solve a customer’s problem?\u201d Around 40% to 50% of FDE movement at Salesforce is internal. The company built a six-week onboarding program in September 2025 with two weeks of focused technical training and four weeks on the job to bridge the gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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