Our Services | Training | Hire, Train, Deploy Team Builds | Forward Deployed Engineer Team Builds

Revolent · Forward Deployed Engineer Team Builds

Your AI works in the demo. Forward Deployed Engineers (FDE) make it work in production. We build them for you.

Forward Deployed Engineers are the specialist tier of Revolent’s Hire, Train, Deploy (HTD) model. We recruit senior engineers with five-plus years of proven production delivery, cross-train them through an intensive FDE program covering agents, evaluation, LLMOps, deployment, and embed them in your team. At the end of the placement, they can convert to your permanent staff, free of charge.

5+ years

Minimum engineering experience at intake

Max 15

Engineers per training cohort

6-8 weeks

Intensive cross-training before deployment

>80%

Of Revols convert to permanent staff

The Deployment Gap

Building the AI was never the hard part. Deploying it is.

Every organization can buy a frontier model. Very few can find the engineer who makes it work inside a real business with messy data, skeptical stakeholders, risk functions and production constraints. That’s why enterprise AI stalls, and it’s why the world’s leading AI companies invented the Forward Deployed Engineer: the person who embeds with a customer and ships AI that actually lands. The catch: you can’t hire them off the open market. The supply is tiny, the compensation bar is set by frontier AI labs and every serious AI business is competing for the same handful of people. If your AI roadmap depends on winning that fight, your roadmap is at risk. There’s another way: we build them for you.

The proposition

A subset of Hire, Train, Deploy with a much higher bar.

Forward Deployed Engineer Team Builds run on the same model as our [Hire, Train, Deploy Team Builds].

We recruit, employ, train and deploy the talent and you get deployment-ready engineers without the hiring risk. At the end of the placement, they convert to your permanent team, free of charge.

What’s different is who gets in and what they’re trained to do.

Who can join the program

We don’t cross-train beginners into FDEs. Intake is limited to experienced hands-on engineers, typically senior software or data engineers, tech leads or engineering leads. On average, they have five-plus years shipping production software. They’ve led delivery, managed clients and executives directly, and argued in money as well as code.

Our selection process has been built to mirror real FDE work and includes a take-home build over messy data, a live defence, an open customer-scenario design exercise and a technical deep dive.

Most applicants don’t make it. That’s the point.

What they’re trained to do

Training takes place over six to eight intensive weeks, capped at fifteen engineers per cohort.

Program participants, known as Revols, build the AI layer on top of their engineering foundation: agentic and GenAI engineering, retrieval and tool use, evaluation and observability, safety, production deployment and LLMOps, and the customer-discovery craft of finding the real problem and scoping the smallest credible system.

Every week ends in something built, evaluated and defensible. They arrive with a deployed, documented portfolio and an industry-recognized AI architecture certification not a badge.

What your FDE does from day one

Production AI, not demos

Four areas of responsibility, embedded inside your team:

01 · Discover

Runs technical discovery with your engineers and stakeholders, mapping the workflows, data and constraints that actually matter.

02 · Build & ship

Puts production artefacts into your live environment: agents, tool integrations, retrieval systems and evaluation frameworks.

03 · Evaluate & adapt

Continuously tests, measures and improves deployed AI solutions, refining performance as business needs evolve.

04 · Govern & hand over

Documents solutions, shares knowledge and supports governance, ensuring your team can confidently own and evolve the capability long term.

Why build rather than buy

Three ways to get FDE capability. One of them works at scale.

Hire from the open market

FDE supply is scarce and priced by frontier AI labs. You’ll compete on compensation and equity against the companies that invented the role and even a successful hire arrives knowing their market value, not your systems.

Bring in a systems integrator

You’ll get capability on day one and lose it, plus all the accumulated context, the day the engagement ends. The knowledge walks out of the door with the consultant.

Build with us

We take on the sourcing, the selection, the training cost and the employment risk. You get engineers trained against your stack and roadmap, embedded for up to two years, fully supported and actively encouraged to convert to your permanent team at the end, free of charge. You keep the skills, the context and the person.

How it works: Hire, Train, Deploy

1

Hire

We work with you to define the profile, then recruit experienced software engineers through our proven assessment process.

2

Train

Engineers complete our intensive FDE programme, tailored to your technology stack, AI tooling and business environment.

3

Deploy

Your FDEs embed into your team, delivering production AI while remaining employed and supported by Revolent.

4

Develop

We continue investing in their development throughout the deployment with ongoing mentoring, technical training and certifications.

5 Continue or convert

At the end of the agreed deployment, you can convert engineers into permanent employees or continue working with Revolent to support your evolving requirements.

FAQS

Who employs the engineers during deployment?

Revolent recruits, employs, trains and supports every engineer throughout the program, removing the upfront hiring overhead and reducing delivery risk for your business.

Can the training be tailored to our technology stack?

Yes. Every cohort is customised to your environment, including your cloud platform, AI frameworks, models, tooling and engineering practices.

What happens after the deployment?

You have flexibility at the end of the programme. You can:

convert engineers into permanent employees at no additional fee
continue working with Revolent if you want ongoing flexibility
scale your FDE team up or down as your AI roadmap evolves

What makes FDE Team Builds different from a standard Hire, Train, Deploy program?

FDE Team Builds are designed specifically for experienced software engineers who will deliver production AI solutions. The program focuses on agentic AI, LLMOps, evaluation, deployment and customer engagement, preparing engineers for complex, customer-facing AI work.

Do we need to be an AI company?

No. The program is designed for organisations building or expanding AI capability, whether you’re deploying AI internally, embedding AI into products or delivering AI solutions to customers.

Can we meet the engineers before training begins?

Yes. You’ll meet shortlisted candidates before training starts, giving you confidence they’re the right fit before deployment.

Build your FDE capability.

Tell us what you’re deploying and where it’s stalling. We’ll scope a cohort against it.

Exploring the broader model?