AWS, Anthropic race to deploy army of specialized engineers key to proving AI spending will pay off

As AI-focused stocks face fresh pressure, AWS and other firms are expanding the talent they see as necessary to prove that AI spending delivers real outcomes. Labor analytics firm Lightcast says U.S. job postings for “forward deployed engineers” (FDEs) surpassed 7,300 in the first nine months of 2026, up from fewer than 200 in 2023. AWS has committed $1 billion to its forward-deployed engineering initiative, while Anthropic plans to train 10,000 FDEs by the end of 2027. OpenAI has launched a deployment business backed by more than $4 billion initially, and Accenture and Google Cloud are building a 1,000-person FDE workforce. The article describes FDEs as bridging enterprise needs with AI expertise.