FDE: how Palantir spawned tech's forward-deployed engineer trend

The Register traced the origin of the "forward-deployed engineer" (FDE) term: Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar coined it in 2007, inspired by French restaurant wait staff. AWS has committed $1 billion to a dedicated FDE organization, while Microsoft pledged $2.5 billion for its "Frontier Company".

• Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar coined the FDE term in 2007
• AWS launched a dedicated FDE unit with $1 billion in June
• Microsoft countered with a $2.5 billion "Frontier Company"
• Gartner and Forrester warn of client dependency on vendors