Fractional Forward Deployed Engineer
Your AI pilot, finally live.
A senior engineer joins your team part of every week, builds on your real systems and data, ships the agent and stays to keep it working. No full-time hire needed.
45 minutes · a written plan, whether or not we work together
Example delivery log with illustrative data: one engineer takes an agent through five stages, discover, build, integrate, deploy and iterate, and stays on after launch.
ISO 27001
ISO 9001
- Clutch 5.0★ (opens in a new tab)
- Claude Certified Architects
Why pilots stall
Great demo. Never shipped.
- 95%
- of enterprise generative AI pilots fail to deliver measurable return MIT NANDA Initiative, 2025
- 42%
- of companies scrapped most of their AI initiatives in 2025, up from 17% S&P Global Market Intelligence, 2025
- Demo data
“It worked in the demo.”
Demos run on clean sample data. Real data is messy, and the agent breaks on the first live ticket.
Built and tested on your real data from day one - No owner
“Whose job is the integration?”
The vendor configured the tool. Wiring it into your CRM, help desk and APIs fell to a team that already has a full-time job.
One named engineer owns build, integration and release - No scale
“It works for one team. Now what?”
A pilot solved one problem. Taking it to five teams needs someone to own the roadmap and the next integration.
The same engineer takes it across teams - Nobody stays
“The agency shipped and left.”
Workflows change, edge cases pile up and quality drifts. Without an owner, the agent quietly stops being used.
Monitored, fixed and improved on the same retainer
What you get
One engineer. Start to finish.
Not a consultant who leaves after the demo, and not a no-code tool you configure yourself. Every design is reviewed by a Claude Certified Architect, and every Upcore architect is Claude certified.
- Who they are
- A senior engineer fluent in Python, cloud infrastructure and AI orchestration (retrieval, agent frameworks, evaluation) who also owns the business outcome.
- How they work
- Inside your tools and your team’s rhythm, not a ticket queue. They build against your real systems, data and constraints.
- What they own
- The build, the integration, the release and everything after launch: monitoring, fixes and the next workflow.
- Why fractional
- Part of every week on a monthly retainer, for as long as it pays off. No recruitment cycle, and you meet your engineer before you sign.
How it works
Five stages. One owner.
Most AI projects skip the last stage. Yours doesn’t: the engineer who ships it stays to keep it working.
- Stage 01
Discover
- Maps how the work is really done, step by step
- Picks the workflow with the most impact, not the easiest demo
- Writes a blueprint of what gets built and what “done” means, signed off before any code
- Stage 02
Build
- Uses your terminology and decision rules
- Built and tested on your real data, not samples
- Your team reviews at every milestone
- Stage 03
Integrate
- Connects to the CRM, ERP, APIs and databases you already run
- Respects your existing access and permissions
- Lives inside your stack, not in another dashboard
- Stage 04
Deploy
- Released where your team works: Slack, WhatsApp, web or an API
- Checked against your governance rules before go-live
- Team trained, with a clear rollback path
- Stage 05
Iterate
- The engineer who built it maintains it
- Tracks accuracy, edge cases and drift, and fixes them early
- Adds the next workflow on the same retainer
Is it right for you?
The right fit, honestly.
If another Upcore service suits you better, we’ll say so on the first call. Every engagement ships under your security and governance rules: see Security.
- 01
It fits when
- You have a pilot or a clear workflow, but nobody to take it to production.
- Your engineers are at capacity and integration keeps slipping.
- The work needs real connections to your CRM, ERP or internal APIs.
- You want one accountable person, not a vendor ticket queue.
- 02
Choose something else when
- You need a whole delivery team changing how software ships: start with AI-Native Engineering.
- You haven’t decided where AI should go yet: start with a Fractional AI Officer.
- You want agents run for you across operations: see Business Process Automation.
Results
Shipped. Still running.
- EngineeringIn productiondelivery agents inside a product teamField-service SaaS company · South Africa
- EngineeringRehiredto add test and DevOps agents to their release pipelineDental implant network · 9 states · United States
- Automation60%+fewer delivery-support tickets, with 10,000+ queries automated a monthNational food & fashion retailer · 900+ stores · South Africa
Their ability to simplify difficult AI concepts for both our business and technical teams was particularly impressive.
Questions
Questions before you start.
What is a Forward Deployed Engineer?
A senior software engineer who works inside a customer’s team to build and ship production AI against their real systems, rather than handing over a tool and leaving. The role is common at AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
What does “fractional” mean here?
Your engineer works with you part of every week on a monthly retainer, instead of a full-time hire. You get the same ownership without the recruitment cycle, and new workflows are added to the same retainer.
What will our engineer build?
Usually AI agents and automations that sit inside your existing tools: triage and routing, document and data extraction, customer and internal assistants, and the integrations that connect them to your CRM, ERP and APIs.
How is this different from an agency or a contractor?
An agency ships a project and moves on. A contractor builds what the ticket says. Your FDE owns the outcome across all five stages and stays after launch to monitor, fix and extend what they built.
How do you handle our code and data?
Your engineer works with the access you grant, in your tools and environment. Which AI providers are used, on what terms, and how code and data are handled is set out on our security page. We sign a mutual NDA before any call where sensitive details are shared.
What does it cost?
A monthly retainer scoped to the work after a 45-minute discovery call. You get a written proposal with a fixed scope before anything starts.
Get your AI out of the pilot. Into production.
Book a 45-minute discovery call. We’ll look at the pilot or workflow you want live and send a written plan, whether or not we work together.