A couple of months back, the global tech industry was shaken when Microsoft offered voluntary retirement to about 9,000 longtime employees, closely following 15,000 forced job cuts last year. Just a week later, the same company announced it was hiring 6,000 new employees into its newly minted AI consulting arm, Microsoft Frontier Company. The role? Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs).
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Microsoft is not alone. Google, Meta, and Amazon have followed a near-identical playbook. They trimmed traditional software roles while aggressively recruiting FDEs at premium salaries. The trend has now reached India too, where entry-level FDEs earn ₹10–12 lakh annually and senior professionals command ₹50–80 lakh or more.
This comes as Enterprise Generative-AI spending tripled to $37 billion in 2025, yet a MIT report found that only 5% of AI pilots generated any measurable business impact. FDEs, that are engineers embedded directly within client operations are emerging as the bridge between AI’s potential and real business outcomes, making this one of the fastest-growing, best-paid roles in tech today.
To discuss this topic, The Hindu will host a webinar titled, ‘AI’s Forward Deployed Engineer jobs’, on July 18, 5:00 p.m. The webinar will be moderated by M. Kalyanaraman, who heads the education vertical at The Hindu.
Register now for free to ask questions and interact with the panellists. The three best questions will receive a free online subscription to The Hindu.
Praveen Kumar, Founder, AlphaSine Inc.
Praveen Kumar is the Founder of AlphaSine Inc. and the Chief Business Officer (CBO) at Sweya. Having built his career across the spectrum as an engineer, designer, and executive consultant, he now works as a systems designer and entrepreneur. Mr. Praveen specialises in building AI systems and solutions that help organisations seamlessly bridge the gap between complex technical systems and real-world operational environments.
Umakant Soni, Co-founder, Bharat1.ai
Umakant Soni is focused on incubating, investing, and co-creating human-centric AI with more than 16 years of experience in AI. He co-founded ARTPARK (AI & Robotics Technology park), a not for profit research park, with the aim to democratise access to AI & Robotics for everyone. He co-founded AI foundry, an investment company focused on “building leapfrog AI ventures for next 6bn users.”
Kalyan Mangalapalli, Emerging Technologies & AI Expert
Mr. Mangalapalli demystifies Emerging Technologies such as AI, IoT, Robotics, Quantum, Geo-Spatial, Bio-Tech, Hydrogen ,Autonomous Technologies, and more. He worked to establish a greenfield Centre of Excellence for AI at Vizag in 2021 under a Public Private Partnership mode with MeitY and GoAP.
O.R.S. Rao, Chancellor, ICFAI University, Sikkim
Prof. O.R.S. Rao is an academician, researcher, industry leader, and institution builder, with over 50 years of experience. Prof. Rao has held leadership positions in various sectors, including higher education, IT, manufacturing, and consulting, in reputed organisations such as BHEL, HCL Technologies, NIIT, Cyient, ABC Consultants, and GMR Group.
Amit Sachdeva, Partner, EY
As a partner and the TMT (Technology, Media & Entertainment and Telecom) business transformation and innovation lead at EY, Mr. Sachdeva advises and delivers global transformation programs for telecoms clients across various regions. He has over 15 years of experience in the technology and telecom industry, and he holds an FCA qualification from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
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Published - July 15, 2026 04:06 pm IST