AWS and Anthropic are racing to build forward-deployed engineering teams as companies seek returns on their AI investments.
US FDE engineer jobs rose 6x year-over-year for two consecutive years, with around 200 job ads in 2023 and 2024, 1,200 in 2025, and 7,300 in the first nine months of 2026, according to Lightcast research cited by TechRadar.
Three of the four top companies advertising FDE roles were consultancies Deloitte, Accenture and KPMG, with Google being the only tech firm, and Anthropic recently announced support for engineer roles within third-party consultancies, TechRadar reports.
OpenAI has backed its FDE business with a $4 billion investment, AWS has committed $1 billion to FDEs, and Anthropic plans to train 10,000 specialist engineers by the end of 2027.