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Apolla AI

Forward Deployed Engineers · building with you, on site

Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE)

FDE is a delivery model in which engineers embed in the customer's real environment and write code, build pipelines and work through edge cases under real constraints and production data. They own the whole journey end to end—problem discovery, architecture, integration and production go-live—until the system actually runs.

Core services

What we actually do

  • Business use-case diagnosis

    Identify which processes suit AI Agents and quantify the return on investment

  • AI process design

    Break business processes into task chains an Agent can execute

  • Rapid prototyping

    Deliver a key-use-case MVP in 2–4 weeks and validate it on real data

  • System integration

    Connect Agents to existing systems and data; handle permissions and boundaries

  • On-site iteration

    Keep tuning prompts, workflows and tool calls; work through edge cases

  • Reusable templates

    Turn what worked in the project into repeatable industry templates

Customer value

What you get

  • Lower the failure rate of AI projects
  • Shorten the path from idea to go-live
  • Avoid "great demo, no impact in production"
  • Get AI into real business processes
  • Build a repeatable method for AI deployment

Delivery loop

The five-stage FDE delivery loop

  1. Discovery

    Go deep into the business to find the real problems and high-value use cases

  2. Prototype

    Quickly build a testable prototype on real data

  3. Deploy

    Handle the edge cases and move to a stable production environment

  4. Productize

    Distill common patterns into standardized product capabilities

  5. Scale

    Feed capabilities back into the platform and reuse them across more use cases

Why FDE

Traditional consulting vs the FDE model

Traditional consulting vs the FDE model

Traditional consulting
One-off deliverable, then they leave
FDE model
Embedded co-creation until it really works
Traditional consulting
Results rarely become a product
FDE model
Lessons feed back into standardized product capabilities
Traditional consulting
Kept at a distance from production
FDE model
Works directly with real data and production constraints

Who it's for

Which use cases suit FDE

  • Critical, complex, cross-system use cases with high value
  • Requirements that are hard to pin down up front and need co-creation to clarify
  • A need to validate fast and move into production
  • A goal of building AI capabilities your company owns

FAQ

Questions customers often ask

Start with an AI consulting workshop

In 1–2 weeks, we work with your business team to map processes, identify high-value use cases, estimate ROI and deliver an actionable transformation roadmap.