The problems most worth solving are the seemingly intractable ones, and they cannot be solved from an ivory tower. To solve real-world problems, you have to get your hands dirty in the arena.
Today, for the modern enterprise, that arena is Agentic AI.
We are currently witnessing a massive shift in how software is built. We are moving away from deterministic systems - where specific inputs lead to predictable, hard-coded outputs - into the world of probabilistic systems. In this new era, reliability isn't a binary state; it’s often chaotic, elusive, and, until now, largely "vibes-based."
In this non-deterministic landscape, standard implementation support is no longer enough. To move from a cool demo to a production-grade engine, you need Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE): a model where expert engineers embed directly with your team to turn chaotic prototypes into reliable business solutions.
What is Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE)?
Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) embed directly inside your organization to solve the hardest problems. FDEs sit with your team, decompose the hardest problems, and write code alongside you. To be effective, an FDE must have the same access to systems as any other engineer on your team. FDEs aren’t observers or advisors on the sidelines, they are operators in the trenches, accountable for outcomes.
Outcomes over Checkboxes
Traditional consulting is often bound by a rigid Statement of Work (SOW). A consultant checks a box once the "agent is deployed." An FDE, however, is obsessed with outcomes. They don’t stop when the code is pushed; they stop when the agent works reliably and delivers actual business value.
Fast and Iterative Value Creation
One of the hallmarks of an FDE implementation is the ability to quickly prototype, gather feedback directly from the users, and iterate. Following the best practices of Agile Development, FDEs are laser-focused on building something that actually works on a fundamental level, ensuring that the final deliverable generates real value for your teams and users.
Real value is created by putting in the hard work to discover what is actually important to build. In a traditional consulting engagement, projects are planned ahead and developed in a waterfall fashion, which misses a lot of opportunity to create value that is discovered during the implementation.
You know your business, we know enterprise agents
Building a system that produces good results is only possible because of your unique, deep knowledge of the business you are engaged in.
Ensuring that systems produce reliable results in real-world conditions, at scale and over time, is where we come in. Arthur FDEs use systems thinking and a range of techniques honed from successfully deploying across different business verticals, company sizes, and infrastructures.
By joining forces with your team we bring:
- Breadth of experience deploying across industries, environments, and use cases
- Operational expertise in designing, running, and evolving evaluations in production
Then, leveraging your vision and domain mastery, we accelerate the path from promising system to trusted, repeatable performance.
The "Experience Gap": Why Agents Need FDEs
We call it the "Easy to Start, Hard to Finish" Trap.
The modern agentic AI stack, including tools like AWS Strands, Google ADK, and CrewAI, has made it incredibly easy to build a prototype. A junior engineer can wire together a functional agent in a single afternoon. However, taking that prototype from "it works on my machine" to 99%+ reliability is a completely different discipline.
The Reliability Cliff
Most teams hitting the "Reliability Cliff" struggle with:
- Non-determinism: Managing outputs that change even with the same input.
- Context Window Management: Ensuring the agent doesn't "forget" crucial data.
- Silent Regressions: When a small tweak to a prompt breaks a feature five steps down the line.
Most enterprise teams have never shipped a production agent before; they lack the "muscle memory" for these specific failures. FDEs bring the intuition of having done it dozens of times. They don't just bring the Arthur AI platform; they bring the wisdom of how to use those tools to stabilize a chaotic system.
Mastering the Agent Development Life Cycle (ADLC)
FDEs are essential for implementing a true Agent Development Life Cycle (ADLC). This isn't just CI/CD for agents; it’s a rigorous framework of continuous evaluation, guardrails, and observability. By embedding an FDE, you aren't just building a product; you are building the internal infrastructure required to maintain AI over the long term.
Proven Impact: FDEs at Enterprise Scale
While the FDE approach is transformative for fast-moving startups, it is mission-critical for the complexity of the global enterprise. Arthur FDEs have recently partnered with some of the world’s most sophisticated organizations to bridge the gap between AI potential and production reality:
- A Top 3 US Bank: Our FDEs established firmwide AI monitoring capabilities, ensuring great outcomes and rigorous oversight across their most high-impact use cases.
- A Fortune 100 Airline: Arthur FDEs work to protect and monitor the airline's entire generative AI backbone, providing the security and reliability needed to scale LLMs across the organization.
- A Middle East Industrial Leader: For one of the top 10 largest companies in the region, Arthur FDEs monitor tens of thousands of models that govern critical, real-time manufacturing processes.
- A Leading APAC Insurer: In a highly regulated sector, our FDEs ensure positive outcomes and robust AI governance, allowing the firm to innovate without compromising on compliance or ethics.
By embedding directly within these complex environments, our engineers don't just solve technical hurdles; they navigate the specific regulatory, security, and architectural constraints that define enterprise AI.
Case Study: How Upsolve Built Trusted AI
The stakes for Upsolve, a YC startup that helps users navigate complex data, couldn't be higher. They built an agent to help users query their data, but in this domain, an agent that "hallucinates" a single number would destroy user trust immediately.
Through the Arthur FDE program, we moved from "prototype" to "trusted product" using three key pillars:
- Deep Instrumentation: The Arthur FDE didn't just hand over documentation; they integrated deep tracing to visualize every step of the agent's decision-making process.
- Golden Datasets: They worked side-by-side with the Upsolve team to curate a "Gold Standard" of correct SQL queries and charts to serve as a ground-truth benchmark.
- The Critical Catch: When OpenAI released a new model version (GPT-5), the FDE-built evaluation suite immediately flagged a regression in query accuracy. Because of the FDE program, they caught the failure before a single customer saw it.
The result? Upsolve shipped a product that users can trust, proving that in the world of AI, reliability is the ultimate competitive advantage.
Software Alone Isn't Enough
In the world of Agentic AI, the software is only half the battle. To bridge the gap between a promising demo and a mission-critical tool, you need the right partners who are willing to get in the trenches with you. Forward Deployed Engineering is how we ensure that the most intractable AI problems actually get solved.
Would you like to learn how an Arthur FDE can help your team bridge the reliability gap? Let’s talk.
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