Frequently Asked Questions: Forward Deployed Engineering

A Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) is a software engineer who works embedded at the client, writes production code there and is accountable for the result. The model comes from Palantir; in 2026 OpenAI, Anthropic and Google Cloud built their own FDE teams. Context Studios offers the same principle for mid-sized companies, led by the founder personally.

Consulting delivers recommendations, a freelancer works through tasks by the hour. A Forward Deployed Engineer is accountable for an agreed result: at the end, the use case runs in production in your environment. That includes clarifying requirements directly with the business team instead of waiting for finished tickets.

Both. Day to day we work remotely in your tools. We come on site by arrangement, typically for the kick-off, workshops with the business team and go-live. How many on-site days make sense is set out in the proposal.

Typically 4 to 12 weeks, depending on the scope of the use case. If a sensible next step follows, the engagement can be extended. Every engagement ends with a handover after which your team can carry the solution forward.

Founder Michael Kerkhoff leads every engagement personally. If the project needs additional specialists, for example for data engineering or frontend, they join and are coordinated through him. Your point of contact stays the same for the entire engagement.

The code is written in your repository from the start. With full payment you receive the exclusive right of use to everything developed specifically for you (clause 5 of our terms). We document decisions as we go, and your team works alongside, so the solution does not depend on one person after handover.

There is no public price, because scope and duration depend on the use case. After a scoping call you receive a proposal for a clearly described result. If you first want to check whether a use case is worth it, start with one of our AI workshops.