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Forward Deployed Engineers

Senior engineers, embedded with your team, shipping your product.

The forward deployed engineer model. Pioneered at Palantir, scaled by OpenAI. Available as a service.

The gap

The options you've already considered.

Hiring

4–6 months to fill a senior role. You need to ship in 4–6 weeks.

Agencies

They hand off code you can't maintain. You wanted a partner, not a vendor.

Fractional CTOs

They advise but don't build. You needed someone at the keyboard.

The model

Engineers who build alongside you, not from a backlog across the ocean.

The forward deployed engineer model originated at Palantir. Today, OpenAI, Salesforce, and Datadog hire hundreds of FDEs to embed directly with their most important customers, building production systems, not running demos.

An FDE embeds with your team, understands your domain, and ships production software. Not prototypes. They bring senior engineering judgment to every decision, from architecture to deployment.

Hypership brings the FDE model to startups and scaleups as a service. Senior engineers, founder-led, no long-term lock-in.

How it works

Three steps to production.

01
Discover

Understand

We learn your domain, your constraints, and what success looks like.

02
Discover → Shape

Shape

We design the approach: architecture, scope, and delivery plan.

03
Shape → Deliver

Deliver

We embed with your team and ship production software, 4–12+ weeks.

Compare

How FDE stacks up.

FDE (Hypership)
  • Embedded with your team
    Yes
  • Ships production code
    Yes
  • Senior engineers
    Yes
  • Understands your domain
    Yes
  • Clean handoff
    Yes
  • No long-term lock-in
    Yes
Dev Agency
  • Embedded with your team
    No
  • Ships production code
    Yes
  • Senior engineers
    Mixed
  • Understands your domain
    Partially
  • Clean handoff
    Sometimes
  • No long-term lock-in
    Contract-dependent
Fractional CTO
  • Embedded with your team
    Sometimes
  • Ships production code
    No
  • Senior engineers
    Yes
  • Understands your domain
    Yes
  • Clean handoff
    N/A
  • No long-term lock-in
    Yes
Offshore Team
  • Embedded with your team
    No
  • Ships production code
    Yes
  • Senior engineers
    Mixed
  • Understands your domain
    Rarely
  • Clean handoff
    Rarely
  • No long-term lock-in
    Contract-dependent
Who it's for

Is this you?

Funded startups without an engineering team

You've raised, you need to ship, you can't wait 6 months to hire.

Teams with a critical deadline

A new product line, a board commitment, a market window closing.

Companies burned by agencies or offshore teams

You got code, not a product.

AI-native companies that need implementation

You need builders, not advisors.

FAQ

Common questions.

Let's talk

Stop hiring. Start shipping.

One conversation. We'll tell you honestly whether we're the right fit.

Start the conversation

→ Based in Belfast, working with teams globally