Award-winning FDEs, under your brand.
Get senior FDEs at your customers in 3 to 4 weeks, without hiring them. In India, the UAE and Israel.
Best Firm for Forward Deployed EngineersCertified by Built with the models shaping what’s next
What we run for you: your product’s full adoption lifecycle.
What we bring
- Engineers trained on your platform, deployed at your customers
- A function design that survives your tenth deployment, not just your first
- Field signal routed back to your product team
Full adoption lifecycle
01 Signed to live: integration, data, configuration and the first users trained.
02 We find the next use case worth building, then build it on your product.
03 We keep it running: monitoring, fixes, retuning and the expansion that follows.
04 Engineers who already know your platform, for escalations and overflow.
Three FDE profiles. In your customer’s room in 3 to 4 weeks.
We hire, train and replace them. You pick the profile your account needs.
- 6–8 years
Echo
Frames the problemRuns discovery and cuts fifteen ideas down to the ones that pay. Start here when customers sign, then stall.
- 4–8 years
Delta
Owns the systemOwns the architecture and the code in production. Start here when the build breaks on the customer’s real systems.
- Up to 3 years
Charlie
Implements on your platformCertified on your platform before deployment. Start here when the motion is proven but slow to roll out.
Tell us what is stuck. We’ll tell you which profile unblocks it.
We have FDEs deployed at
Build the FDE function yourself, or have it running next month.
Building it yourself
You hire and run the function
First engineer in a
customer’s room
- 78% of 357 FDE roles we tracked demand 5+ years
- You carry the bench and the bad hires
- Product engineers pulled into implementations
Letting us run it
We hire, train, bench and replace
In your customer’s room
in 3 to 4 weeks
About 5 months head start
Your product team stays on the product. Field signal comes back structured.
Book a 30-minute callKnackLabs is an award-winning FDE firm.
Best Firm for Forward Deployed Engineers, certified by 
Why software companies choose KnackLabs for FDEs.
Six reasons. Flip any card.
- 01
Boots on the ground
Our engineer in the room with your customer, where you have no delivery team yet.
- 02
The profile you can’t hire
Senior engineers with consulting range, recruited and trained by us, at your customer in weeks.
- 03
In production since 2016
Nine years shipping AI into enterprises, including version one of Interakt, now serving 50,000+ businesses.
- 04
Delivery we own
We stay through adoption: not a vendor that hands over a build and leaves.
- 05
Ready for your security review
Confidentiality and data handling in the contract. ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certification in progress.
- 06
We build platforms too
We open-source our own, Gantry and Symphony Forge, so we know what platform delivery takes.
Seven years as a platform’s delivery arm. Under its name, not ours.
Since 2019 our teams have built for 
, one of India’s leading conversational AI platforms, now part of Jio. That work ran remotely; our forward deployed engineers bring the same discipline into the room.
- 100+
- enterprise bots delivered under Haptik’s name
- 7+ years
- as the delivery arm of one platform
- 15B+
- conversations on the platform we built on
Free report · 17 pages · October 2026
The FDE Playbook. How OpenAI, Palantir and Sarvam approach forward deployed engineering.
Hiring, team structure, evals and getting pilots into production, from our Bengaluru event (18 September 2026).
- 94%
- of the room have, are building or are exploring an FDE capability
- 91%
- have found it hard to move AI pilots into production
Six themes inside, from hiring FDEs to evals before agents. See what’s inside
Questions platform teams ask us first.
The FDE function is led by
Kartik Bansal on LinkedInFounder and CEO, KnackLabs
Ravi Kiran Vemula on LinkedInVP of Engineering · LangChain Ambassador, KnackLabs
Anish Mody on LinkedInSVP of Software Delivery, KnackLabs
Executive oversight, architecture reviews and escalation support on every account.
What is a forward deployed engineer?
A forward deployed engineer (FDE) is a senior software engineer who works inside a customer’s business rather than behind a ticket queue. They sit with the people who do the work, find the highest-value problem, build against the real systems and data, and stay until the system runs in production.
What is FDE as a Service?
FDE as a Service means KnackLabs runs your FDE function. We hire, train, bench and replace forward deployed engineers who learn your platform in a 30-day bootcamp, then work at your customers under your brand: onboarding, use case development, managed services and engineering support.
Which FDE profile do we need?
It depends on what is stuck. An Echo (6–8 years) frames the problem when customers sign and then stall. A Delta (4–8 years) owns the system when it breaks on the customer’s real systems. Charlies (up to 3 years, certified on your platform) add throughput once the motion is proven. Large accounts usually take an Echo with one or two Charlies.
How is FDE as a Service different from staff augmentation?
Staff augmentation adds a person to your team, directed by you. FDE as a Service puts a trained engineer at your customer, under your brand, to get your platform into production. You own the customer and the outcome; we own the engineer, their performance and their replacement, and that line is written into the contract.
How quickly can a forward deployed engineer start?
In 3 to 4 weeks. Our engineers are already hired; each goes through a 30-day bootcamp on your platform and is in your customer’s room within the month. Hiring an FDE yourself usually takes six months or more.
Is the engineer really white-labeled?
Yes. Your customer sees your brand end to end, from email to deliverables to the person in the room. The engineer represents your platform, not KnackLabs.
Who owns the IP and the customer relationship?
You do. The work is built on your platform and the IP sits with you or your customer under the engagement terms. We never sell KnackLabs products inside an FDE engagement, so your customer stays yours.
Where does our own engineering team fit in?
On the roadmap. Our engineer owns the rollout at your customer, so your product engineers are not pulled into implementations, and structured field insight from every account goes back to your product team.
What if customer demand goes up or down?
Start with one engineer. Larger rollouts take a two-person shape, usually a product lead and an AI engineer, and more engineers can take on parallel workstreams as demand proves.
What about security and procurement reviews?
We work under the confidentiality and data-handling terms of the engagement contract and support your security and procurement reviews. ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certification is in progress (started August 2026).
Do you compete with us? You build AI platforms too.
No. We build and open-source our own platforms, Gantry and Symphony Forge, which is why we understand platform delivery. In an FDE engagement we ship on your platform, under your brand, and your customer stays yours.
What happens on the first call?
Thirty focused minutes. You tell us where customers stall after signing, or which FDE roles you cannot fill; we tell you how the engagement would work for you. No slides.
Tell us where customers stall. We’ll show you the engineer.
Thirty minutes on your delivery gap: the accounts that stall after signing, or the FDE roles you can’t fill. We reply within one business day.