GCCs outpace Indian IT services firms in hiring Forward Deployed Engineers

GCCs in India are emerging as larger recruiters of Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) as global companies look to build and own AI capabilities in-house.

The FDE role is gaining importance as enterprises move beyond AI experimentation and focus on translating AI capabilities into measurable business value. Neelabh Shukla, Chief Business Officer, Careernet, said, “Building an AI model is part of the challenge; making it work across legacy systems, fragmented data, compliance requirements, and real business processes is where the real complexity lies. FDEs are translators between what the technology can do and what the business needs. As AI becomes core infrastructure rather than a side project, that combination of technical depth and business understanding is becoming valuable.”

Shukla also highlighted how the role differs across operating models, noting that GCC FDEs typically go deep on a narrower set of business problems, while IT services FDEs optimize for repeatability and scale across multiple client environments. Despite these differences, both models require strong engineering skills paired with business fluency.