Hayat Amin is a tech CFO and strategist and AI agent operator with twenty years inside high-growth technology. He has been on the operator side of three exits (including to American Express and TripAdvisor) and put three businesses on the Financial Times FT100 fastest-growing list. He operates fractionally across New York, London, and Dubai.

Where is Hayat Amin based?

Hayat Amin operates from three cities: New York, London, and Dubai. Engagements are remote-first with quarterly on-site weeks scheduled around the client's board cycle.

What does Hayat Amin do?

Hayat Amin runs two services fractionally: the tech CFO and strategist function during fundraises and exits, which includes IP and data strategy that prices intangibles and turns them into revenue; and AI agent operations that embed processes, automations, AI agents, agentic workflows, and real-time reporting into the business with measurable P&L impact.

How is Hayat Amin different from other fractional CFOs?

Most fractional CFOs are accountants with a senior title. Hayat Amin is an operator who has sat in the buyer's seat on three exits. The data-room build, diligence Q&A responses, and valuation defence look like what an acquirer expects to see. That gap is usually worth 15 to 30% of exit multiple.

How do I contact Hayat Amin?

Email hayat@beyondelevation.com or book a call at https://meethayat.com/contact/. Most outreach gets a response within 24 hours.

Founder Q&A · Updated 2026-10-02

Forward Deployed Engineer Role and Responsibilities

A forward deployed engineer gets a product working in production inside one customer's systems. Employers list five core duties. Scope the problem, write production code, connect the customer's data, answer to their executives, and report back to product.

I'm Hayat Amin. I spent twenty years as a technology chief financial officer, sold three companies in that seat, and now do this job myself inside client companies, so the list below is my own job description as much as anyone's. This morning, 2 October 2026, I read every live posting with forward deployed in the title at 10 companies that publish their job boards as open feeds. 185 of them are engineering roles. I counted what each one asks the engineer to do.

An illuminated artwork in the golden age Islamic manuscript style, gold leaf, lapis and turquoise arabesques on cream. In the central arch a visiting engineer kneels on a patron's workshop floor with both hands on a brass machine, tools scattered round him, while the robed patron stands and points. Eight smaller arched panels frame him with the rest of the job: a seated audience with the patron and a scroll, a plan being drawn at a desk, work at a forge bench, a model presented to a court, two water channels being joined where they did not meet, a letter written in the field, a conversation with a seated official, and a saddled horse waiting for the next journey. — The engineer in the middle has his hands on the patron's machine, not his own, which is the whole definition. The eight panels round him are the rest of the week: the audience, the plan, the bench, the court, the two channels that never met, the letter home and the horse.

How I counted

I pulled the public job feeds of Palantir (320 live roles), OpenAI (833), Anthropic (638), Databricks (872), Scale AI (194), Datadog (440), Figma (165), Cursor (133), Baseten (104) and Cresta (88). That's 3,787 jobs. 252 had forward deployed in the title. I removed exact duplicates posted to several cities, which left 196, then set aside the product manager and deployment strategist titles, which left 185 engineering postings. Palantir has 65 of them, Databricks 60, OpenAI 24, Scale AI 12, Cursor 7, Anthropic 6, Cresta 6, and Baseten, Datadog and Figma 5 between them.

For each posting I took the part that describes the job and stopped where the requirements start, at headings like What We Value, What we look for or You might thrive. 14 postings have no such heading, so for those I read the whole text. Then I counted plain words. A posting that says "integrating with client systems" counts for integration. One that never uses the word doesn't, even if the job obviously involves it, so every number here is a floor.

The five duties nearly everyone writes down

175 of the 185 put the customer or the client into the description of the work. That's the role. The responsibilities are what the engineer does once they're in there, and five of them recur across the employers.

1. Scope the real problem first

71 postings mention discovery or scoping, at 8 of the 10 companies. OpenAI's Forward Deployed Engineer in New York, on its financial services team, has the engineer "Lead discovery and scoping from pre-sales through post-production". Scale AI's public sector engineer has to "Embed with government customers to understand their mission, scope the problem, and turn it into working software". Cursor puts it as identifying "the real bottleneck" and defining success metrics before anyone builds anything. I'd put this first in any job description I wrote, because building the right thing for the wrong problem is the most expensive mistake in this work.

2. Write production code in the customer's systems

115 postings use the word production in the job description itself, at 8 of the 10 companies. Anthropic's London engineer will "Work within customer systems to build production applications with Claude models" and deliver "MCP servers, sub-agents, and agent skills". Datadog's New York posting says the role is "for someone who wants to write code with customers, not just advise them". Cursor's says "This is not a demo role." The coding question gets its own piece, do forward deployed engineers code, and the postings settle it.

3. Connect the customer's data and systems

79 postings use some form of integrate, again at 8 of 10. Databricks says its engineers deliver "integrating with client systems, training, and other technical needs". Scale AI wants "data integrations that connect customer environments to Scale's platform and back". OpenAI's financial services engineer owns "integrations, data flows, reliability, observability, and on-call readiness", which is the honest version. The integration is not done when it runs once. It is done when somebody is on call for it.

4. Work with stakeholders up to the executive floor

100 postings name stakeholders or executives, at 7 of the 10. Palantir's New York Forward Deployed Software Engineer is "Engaging directly with customer stakeholders, from technical teams to executives". Databricks uses almost the same words, "from technical ICs to executives". This is the duty engineers underestimate. The person who signs off on production is rarely the person who uses the system, and the engineer has to be credible to both in the same week.

5. Carry what you learned back to your own product

76 postings ask for feedback, at 7 of the 10. OpenAI's Tokyo posting, and 12 more of its 24, ask the engineer to "Share field feedback that helps Research and Product understand where the models succeed and where they can improve". Anthropic's wants the engineer to "Identify and codify repeatable deployment patterns and contribute insights back to our Product and Engineering teams". That's the duty that separates this job from a consultant's. The engineer works for the vendor, and the vendor wants the customer's pain turned into product.

33 of the 185 postings name all five. 30 of those are at Databricks and 3 at OpenAI, so if you want the full role in one document, read a Databricks posting.

Three more that show up often enough to count

76 postings ask the engineer to turn one customer's fix into something reusable, using the words reusable, playbook, repeatable or accelerator. Figma's founding engineer has to turn what they learn "into a reusable path for future customers instead of taking permanent ownership of the customer's codebase". I'd frame that sentence and put it on the wall of anyone hiring for this.

65 postings mention evals or evaluation, at 6 of the 10, almost all of them AI companies. OpenAI's financial services engineer will "Run evaluation loops that measure model and system quality against workflow-specific financial benchmarks" and "Define and enforce launch criteria". Figma's says "run evals" in its first bullet. That's 35 percent of the sample, and it's the newest duty on the list.

136 of the 185 mention travel somewhere in the posting. OpenAI's New York engineer travels "up to 50%", Palantir's New York engineer "up to 25%", Databricks and Datadog in New York 20 percent each. I counted the travel lines properly in do forward deployed engineers travel.

The same title is a product job at Figma and a billable job at Databricks

The responsibilities agree. The reporting line doesn't, and it changes what the engineer is measured on.

Figma's posting says this is "a senior/staff-level engineering role within Product and Engineering, not a sales or services function". At Databricks, 40 of the 60 forward deployed engineering postings use the word billable, 33 of them in the line "FDEs are billable", which puts the role in professional services. Datadog sits in between. Its engineer builds prototypes "early in the sales cycle" and is "the technical force that turns a signed contract into a live, adopted implementation". Baseten says the quiet part plainly, calling its role engineering with "aspects of product management, technical customer success, and pre-sales solution engineering mixed in".

If you're applying, this is the line to read first. A product team measures you on what ships back into the product. A services team measures you on utilisation. A sales team measures you on closed deals. All three call the job forward deployed engineer.

What the pay looks like in New York

The bands printed on 2 October 2026, base only. Palantir's Forward Deployed Software Engineer in New York, $135,000 to $200,000, asking for 1 or more years of experience. Databricks's Senior Forward Deployed Engineer for Financial Services in New York City, $182,000 to $250,208. Datadog's Senior Forward Deployed Engineer for Feature Flags in New York, $192,000 to $240,000. Figma's Forward Deployed Engineer, held in San Francisco, New York or remotely in the United States, $153,000 to $376,000, the widest band in the sample.

Palantir's Forward Deployed AI Engineer posting describes the job as responsibilities that "look similar to those of a hands-on AI startup CTO", for the same $135,000 to $200,000. That's a fair description of the work and a cheap price for a CTO.

If you're hiring one, write these five into the brief

Most people who ask me about this role aren't candidates. They run a company of 20 or 200 people, they've watched an AI pilot stall, and they want to know what to ask for. The five duties above are the brief. Ask who scopes the problem and how they'll measure success. Ask what runs in production and who is on call for it. Ask which of your systems get connected. Ask who on their side talks to your leadership. And ask what you own at the end, because Figma's rule is the right one. A good engineer leaves you something reusable and doesn't keep the keys.

That is the work I do through Beyond Elevation, my firm, for companies that need the job done rather than a hire made. I scope it, build it inside your systems, connect what doesn't talk, and hand it back. The engagement is set out at meethayat.com/services/fde. If you want the definition before the duties, start with what a forward deployed engineer is, and if you suspect it's a consultant with a new title, I answered that in is a forward deployed engineer just a consultant.

About Hayat Amin

I'm Hayat Amin, and I've spent twenty years in technology, most of it as a chief financial officer in companies growing faster than their systems. I sold three of them from that seat, with American Express and TripAdvisor among the buyers, and carried three FT 100 fastest growing listings along the way.

I'm exceptional at the five duties in this piece, and the finance years are why the stakeholder one comes easiest. I connect the systems in a company that were never built to talk to each other, turn what comes out of them into a real time number a chief executive can run the week on, and value the intellectual property and data a company already owns. I also sit beside founders from the first conversation to the wire transfer on an exit. A chief financial officer who writes the code is a rare pairing.

I'm available now for fractional chief financial officer work and AI operations work through Beyond Elevation, and you can book the engineering side at meethayat.com/services/fde.

If you want a second pair of eyes on what to automate first, I do a free audit call, one call and then a written list, at beyondelevation.com/call/hayat.

Questions people actually ask

What are the responsibilities of a forward deployed engineer?

Scope the customer's real problem, write production code inside their systems, integrate their data and tools, work with their stakeholders up to executive level, and carry what you learn back to your own product team. Of 185 live postings I read on 2 October 2026, 175 put the customer in the job description, 115 say production, 100 name stakeholders or executives, 79 say integrate, 76 ask for feedback and 71 mention discovery or scoping. 33 name all five.

What is a forward deployed engineer role?

A software engineering job whose workplace is the customer's systems rather than the employer's codebase. The engineer makes the employer's product work in production for one customer, then turns what worked into something the next customer can reuse. Palantir, which says it pioneered the position, describes it as embedding engineers directly with customers.

What does a forward deployed engineer do day to day?

Palantir's New York Forward Deployed AI Engineer posting says a day's work may include building LLM workflows at scale, talking to customers about their needs and AI strategy, and implementing solutions inside their organisation. Cursor describes shipping a first version in days and hardening it over weeks. 136 of the 185 postings mention travel.

Do forward deployed engineers code?

Yes. 115 of 185 postings say production in the job description itself. Datadog wants someone who will "write code with customers, not just advise them", and Cursor says "This is not a demo role."

Is a forward deployed engineer a sales role?

At some employers it leans that way. Figma says its role is "not a sales or services function". Datadog's engineer works "early in the sales cycle". 40 of Databricks's 60 postings call its engineers billable. Check which team the role reports into.

How much does a forward deployed engineer make in New York?

Base bands printed on 2 October 2026: Palantir $135,000 to $200,000, Databricks $182,000 to $250,208 for a senior financial services role, Datadog $192,000 to $240,000 for a senior role, and Figma $153,000 to $376,000 for a role that can sit in New York, San Francisco or remote in the United States.

What is a forward deployed engineering team?

A group of these engineers sitting between the employer's product team and its biggest customers. OpenAI's describes itself as operating "at the intersection of customer delivery and core platform development". 76 of the 185 postings ask the engineer to turn one-off fixes into reusable patterns, playbooks or accelerators, which is what the team exists to produce.

Where these numbers come from

Every count above comes from the employers' own live feeds, read on 2 October 2026. The postings quoted are Palantir's Forward Deployed Software Engineer in New York and Forward Deployed AI Engineer in New York, OpenAI's financial services engineer in New York City and Tokyo engineer, Anthropic's London engineer, Databricks in New York City, Datadog in New York, Figma, Cursor in San Francisco, Scale AI's public sector engineer and Baseten in San Francisco. Salary figures are base bands before equity, bonus or sign-on. Postings get rewritten, so if you're reading this months later, open the link and check the line rather than trusting mine.