Vendors asking forward deployed engineers to make good on trillion-dollar AI bet

During a flight on Marc Benioff’s private jet last year, the Salesforce CEO apparently subjected his company’s senior execs to a four-hour montage of Palantir CEO Alex Karp holding forth on the value of forward-deployed engineers (FDEs).

The experience — which might have led anyone else to seek the emergency exit — was a lesson for Michael Spencer, Salesforce veep for finance and strategy, about the value of FDEs in boosting sales at Palantir, whose mantra is "land and expand."

He shared the anecdote with the Deutsche Bank 2026 Technology Conference in August, just as the FDE boom was reaching fever pitch.

For the uninitiated, vendors send FDEs to clients without tying them to a project. Effectively consultants-without-portfolio, they are expected to build something valuable, at speed, using their technology. …