The AI industry just invented a new job. Wait until you hear what it does.
In a Nutshell
AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are launching ventures to deploy elite "forward deployed engineers"—highly skilled humans who build quick AI demos and prototypes at client sites, exposing AI's inability to fully replace engineering labor and creating a cycle of dependency. These engineers act as "slop contractors" for impressive but short-lived systems, positioning the role as the hottest AI job amid a dystopian future where Big AI gatekeeps software development. To land it, update your LinkedIn to "Forward Deployed Engineer," tailor resumes to Anthropic's job description, study agentic AI theory for interviews, and use Claude to build live multi-agent demos.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Change your LinkedIn title from prompt engineer, context engineer, vibe code fixerupper to forward deployed engineer. It's provocative and draws attention. This is one of the most badass job titles.
Forward deployed engineer is a military term invented by Palantir. They send highly trained, pre-trained engineers to client companies. Anthropic announced a $1.5 billion joint venture with Blackstone and Goldman Sachs to install these engineers at enterprises. OpenAI countered with Deployco, a $14 billion venture. It's humans as a service.
AI made engineers lazy; they lost the desire to code and want an easy button. Forward deployed engineers are slop contractors. Companies call Anthropic for AI because their engineers are unproductive, talking about orchestration while tokens rise without results. Anthropic sends these elite engineers, like Navy Seals of AI, who helicopter in wearing black short-sleeved t-shirts.
They build demos and prototypes that AI excels at. In the first week, they create an amazing demo system. Boomer suits are impressed by the speed and detail. It's slop that works initially with no users, but after 6 months, problems emerge. The engineers have backward deployed (left), leaving the slop behind. Companies then hire more, but they're not the same elite ones.
This shows AI companies' product isn't autonomous replacement for human labor. It's a con: AI infects teams with laziness, then they sell the antidote—hire our engineers.
Software engineering won't exist; companies hit up Anthropic or OpenAI for software. They have warehouses of forward deployed engineers accessing tokens at cost for discounts. In 10 years, only OpenAI and Anthropic do software.
Kids can't compete because no access to powerful software models. Anthropic gives access to models for cooking, poetry, health, but tight control on software models like Mythos. Anthropic becomes a $100 trillion gatekeeper to software development.
If OpenAI and Anthropic keep models open with fair access (they're not; Mythos inaccessible), and open-source keeps up, companies make mid-grade in-house software. Anthropic holds back the best security model, giving software models with bugs, making them undeployable. Result: cute little software, not as good as Anthropic's.
Forward deployed engineer / applied AI is the hot role. Don't apply to Anthropic's posting (link provided). Copy responsibilities from it into your resume, rephrase to sound personal:
- Work within customer systems to build production applications with Claude models.
- Deliver technical artifacts like MCP servers and sub agents.
- Maintain strong knowledge of latest LLM developments.
- Build long-term relations with customers.
This resume beats AI screeners matching against Anthropic postings, guaranteeing callbacks.
Study like Dwarkesh (podcast host who interviewed Jensen, Daario): practice material with flashcards, tutors. Learn theory abstractly: agentic paradigms, patterns, managing 100 agents, shipping 300 pull requests/day (beat Boris). No need to build anything.
In interviews, build multi-agent orchestration systems. Brain dump to Claude; it does everything. Take credit—demos well, feels like real work. That's AI engineering. Interviewers impressed: "This guy whipped up a 100 agent system live."
Example: Soham worked 12 companies by mastering interviews, then slacked off with sick days.
Forward deploy yourself. Wear turtleneck or half-sleeve to stand out.
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