forwardEngineers

About

Forward-deployed means we work where the problem is.

We are a small group of AI engineers and growth marketers who embed inside client teams. Not a staffing marketplace, and not an agency with a delivery layer between you and the people writing the code.

Book a callPartner with us
12
Engineers on the bench
11
Growth operators
6
Industries we take work in

Senior people, or nobody

Every person on an engagement has shipped the thing before. We would rather turn work down than staff it with someone learning on your budget.

Engineering and marketing together

A model nobody adopts is not a result. Our marketers sit in the same engagement as the engineers, from the first week.

We leave

The measure of a good engagement is that it ends. Runbooks, decision records, a named internal owner — then we are gone.

Partnering on your AI journey.

A senior-only bench, deployed into client teams rather than managed from a distance. These are the numbers we are held to.

40+
AI systems shipped to production
12days
Median time from kickoff to first merge
6
Industries with a domain partner beside us
92%
Of engagements extended or renewed

The bench

Who deploys.

These are the engineers who join your standups. When an engagement needs depth we do not have, we bring a domain partner rather than improvising.

Editorial black and white studio portrait of a male principal software engineer with short hair, wearing a dark minimal turtleneck against a clean neutral architectural backdrop, illuminated with sharp studio lighting, high contrast aesthetic.

Alex Rivera

PST / SF

Principal Distributed Systems Engineer

ex-Stripe • FinTech Lead

RustGoKafkaRaft / Paxos
High fashion studio headshot portrait of Elena Rostova, female staff distributed systems engineer, neutral cool gray minimalist background, crisp editorial lighting, subtle shadow, sharp monochromatic palette with modern professional stance

Elena Rostova

Berlin, DE

Distributed Systems Lead

Ex-SoundCloud

GoRustRaft / PaxosEx-SoundCloud
Editorial portrait of an Asian female senior full-stack software architect with sleek hair, wearing a structured dark collar, shot in high resolution with soft directional studio light, minimalist editorial aesthetic.

Sarah Lin

EST / NYC

Senior Full-Stack Architect

ex-Vercel Partner • SaaS Scale

React 19TypeScriptNode.jsGraphQL
High-end editorial studio portrait of Marcus Vance, African American male cloud infrastructure architect, clean geometric lighting, sophisticated expression, modern dark turtleneck against muted neutral studio backdrop

Marcus Vance

Austin, US

Cloud Architect & K8s

Ex-Datadog

KubernetesTerraformAWS High-ScaleEx-Datadog
Monochrome studio portrait of a Middle Eastern male cloud infrastructure and SRE lead engineer with a clean beard, direct confident gaze, styled in crisp dark workwear, sharp rim lighting.

Tariq Mansoor

GMT / London

Cloud Infrastructure & SRE Lead

ex-Deliveroo • K8s at Scale

AWS EKSTerraformDatadogSOC 2 Type II
High-end editorial studio portrait of Sophia Chen, East Asian female principal full stack software engineer, sharp monochrome styling, minimalist composition, soft direct studio key lighting, stark neutral background

Sophia Chen

Toronto, CA

Full Stack & Next.js Core

Ex-Shopify

TypeScriptNext.js 15GraphQL EngineEx-Shopify
Crisp editorial portrait of an Indian female machine learning infrastructure specialist wearing dark architectural blazer, thoughtful neutral expression, modern gallery backdrop with crisp architectural shadows.

Devina Patel

PST / Seattle

ML Infrastructure & Serving Lead

ex-Anthropic Contributor

PyTorchvLLM EngineLoRA Fine-TuneCUDA C++
High fashion studio headshot of Liam O'Connor, Caucasian male senior AI/ML systems engineer, modern minimalist aesthetic, crisp rim light, focused expression, high contrast black and white styling

Liam O'Connor

Dublin, IE

AI/ML Systems & LLM Ops

Ex-DeepMind

vLLM / TritonPyTorchCUDA TuningEx-DeepMind
Editorial black and white portrait of a German male mobile systems engineer with glasses, looking directly into camera with confident analytical demeanor, studio lighting on pure light gray background.

Lucas Meyer

CET / Berlin

Senior Mobile Systems Engineer

ex-N26 • FinTech Core Core

Swift 6Kotlin MultiReact NativeMetal API
Editorial portrait of a French female frontend performance engineer with short dark hair, wearing minimalist black architectural apparel, direct steady gaze, high-end design journal lighting.

Chloe Dubois

CET / Paris

Frontend Performance Specialist

ex-Linear Community Lab

Next.js AppThree.js / WebGLTailwind CSSWeb Vitals 99
Editorial portrait of an Indian male senior database architect in a black collared shirt, poised against modern gallery concrete, strong key light, monochrome editorial style.

Vikram Joshi

IST / Bengaluru

Database Architect & Low Latency

ex-Coinbase Data Platform

PostgreSQLClickHouseRedis ClusterDistributed SQL
Editorial monochrome portrait of a Caucasian female security and cryptography engineer with glasses, looking forward with intense focus, crisp overhead key light, architectural brutalist styling.

Hannah Acker

EST / Boston

Security & Cryptography Engineer

ex-Trail of Bits Contributor

Rust / CZK ProofsOAuth / SAMLAppSec Audit

Go-to-market

The half most engineering teams skip.

Growth operators who have taken technical products to market — working the same engagement, not a separate retainer.

Close up architectural portrait of Maya Thorne, a professional growth executive woman in her 30s with crisp natural lighting, deep contrast, modern office minimalist background, neutral cool tones with soft teal reflection.

Maya Thorne

SFO

VP Growth & Demand Gen

ARR: $0 → $20M ARR Scaling

B2B SaaSHubSpotPaid AcquisitionIntent Data
Polished high-contrast editorial portrait of Maya Lin, Asian female growth marketing director, sleek blazer, direct softbox lighting, clean white backdrop

Maya Lin

SFO

VP Growth & Product-Led Loops

+280% ARR IN 14 MO

B2B SaaSPLG ModelingAmplitude Deep Dive
Refined portrait of Julian Sterling, a male tech product marketer in a dark tailored overshirt, subtle concrete texture background, high-contrast studio softbox lighting, monochromatic color style with sharp depth.

Julian Sterling

NYC

Head of Product Marketing

Launches: 14 Tier-1 Products

Category DesignDev PositioningLaunch Strategy
Studio black and white portrait of Julian Mercer, handsome male demand generation architect in his late 30s, sharp tailoring, neutral background, architectural lighting

Julian Mercer

NYC

Demand Gen & Pipeline Architect

-42% BLENDED CAC

ABM StrategyCAC OptimizationHubspot / Segment
High-resolution editorial headshot of Aarti Rao, a South Asian female developer relations director, smiling warmly against clean geometric architectural window panes, directional morning sunlight.

Aarti Rao

BER

DevRel & Tech Community Lead

Community: 95K+ Devs

Open SourceGitHub DevsHackathonsDev Docs
Minimalist editorial studio portrait of Soraya Patel, South Asian woman with confident demeanor, product marketing director, stark white background, crisp modern fashion

Soraya Patel

LON

Product Marketing Director

3 TIER-1 LAUNCHES

Developer StoryGTM LaunchSales Enablement
Monochrome studio portrait of Christian Lind, Scandinavian male technical SEO strategist, wearing minimal rimless eyewear, stark light-and-shadow portrait style, pristine white negative space.

Christian Lind

CPH

Performance & SEO Systems Director

Traffic: +420% Organic Pipeline

Technical SEOProgrammaticOrganic Pipeline
Artistic high-contrast portrait of Danielle Kross, an analytical female product growth expert in modern smart casual attire, dark grey architectural wall backdrop, sharp facial features, confident posture.

Danielle Kross

ATX

Lifecycle & Retention Architect

Net Retention: 138% Peak NRR

PostHogBrazeSegmentActivation Funnels
Sophisticated portrait of Samuel Osei, a Black male executive brand strategist, styled in dark minimal turtleneck, soft directional studio rim lighting, refined expression, modern art gallery mood.

Samuel Osei

LON

Brand & Communications Director

Press: WSJ, Bloomberg, TechCrunch

Tech PRExec CommsNarrative Engine
Dynamic portrait of Megan Vance, a focused B2B paid media director with dark hair tied back, natural diffused window lighting in an open modern tech loft, professional, direct eye contact.

Megan Vance

BOS

Paid Acquisition & ABM Lead

Pipeline: $32M Closed Won

LinkedIn AdsMetadata.io6senseABM Workflows
Intellectual portrait of Felix Baum, a male marketing analytics architect, standing beside modern architectural glass panel with subtle data code reflections, warm ambient soft focus studio depth.

Felix Baum

ZUR

RevOps & Marketing Analytics Lead

Models: Multi-Touch Bayesian

SalesforceHubSpotdbt & LookerAttribution

Have a system to ship

Bring us the problem that keeps stalling.

A 30-minute working session with the engineers who would do the build — not an account manager. You leave with an architecture opinion either way.

Book a callSend a message

Know a market better than we do

Partner with us on your domain.

You bring the domain judgement and the relationships. We bring the engineers who turn it into shipped software. Revenue-shared, no exclusivity.

How partnership works