IT firms’ new gold dust: Forward deployed engineers

Move over offshore coders. Indian IT firms are now sending engineers straight into the client’s war room. As artificial intelligence (AI) projects move from flashy demos to messy real-world deployment, companies such as Infosys, HCLTech, Wipro and Coforge are embracing a Silicon Valley-style role called the forward deployed engineer (FDE) who is a part coder, part consultant, part corporate therapist.