Forward Deployed Engineering, AI-native
Custom software, shipped faster. Embed a senior engineer in your team.
ArcusForward embeds a senior engineer in your team to ship production software, integrations, and AI-powered applications — with AI in the engineering loop, not just the deliverable. Secure by design, owned by you.
The problem
Most enterprise builds stall between idea and production.
Whether it's a custom application, an integration, or an AI build, the gap is rarely the technology. It's the distance between a promising plan and a secure, integrated, maintainable system your team can run.
Pilots that stall
Impressive demos that never survive contact with real data, real users, or a real security review.
Consultants who leave a deck
Strategy without shipped software — and no one on your team who can maintain what was built.
Hiring that takes 6 months
Senior engineering talent — especially AI-fluent — is scarce, expensive, and slow to recruit.
The model
A forward deployed engineer, embedded in your team
Not an agency. Not a staffing firm. A senior engineer who sits inside your company, owns a hard problem end to end, and is accountable for getting it into production.
- A senior engineer embedded in your team — in your standups, your repos, your Slack.
- AI-native delivery — we use AI in the engineering loop, not just in the deliverable.
- Outcome-accountable engagements gated by milestones, not billable hours.
- Security & compliance by design — we work inside your controls from day one.
- No lock-in. You own the code, the docs, and the knowledge transfer.
- Honest scoping — we will tell you when AI is the wrong tool, or when a simpler build is the right one.
What "forward deployed" means
The engineer works from inside your environment — your codebase, your data, your constraints. They learn your domain, build with your team, and transfer the capability before they leave.
You get the speed of a specialist and the continuity of an in-house hire, without the recruiting cycle or the long-term headcount.
What we deliver
From use-case to production system
Custom Software Development
Bespoke applications, internal tools, and workflow systems built into your stack — production-ready, owned by your team. AI accelerates how we build it.
AI-Powered Applications
When the deliverable IS the AI: agents, copilots, retrieval over your knowledge, and judgment-augmented automation — with evaluation, guardrails, and human-in-the-loop where it matters.
Integration & Deployment
Wiring it all together inside your existing tools, data, and identity — least-privilege access, IaC, CI/CD, and monitoring. AI or not.
Embedded Enablement
Your engineers pair through the build. When we leave, the capability stays — documented, tested, and owned by your team.
How we work
A delivery framework built for accountability
Every engagement runs through five gated phases. You approve each gate before we move forward — no surprises, no open-ended billing.
- 01
Discovery & Fit
Define the problem, success metric, and security constraints. Signed engagement charter.
- 02
Embed & Architect
The FDE embeds in your team, runs technical discovery, and gets the architecture approved.
- 03
Build
Working software every sprint, demoed and accepted against explicit acceptance criteria.
- 04
Harden & Secure
Security review, compliance validation, evals, and a passed production-readiness checklist.
- 05
Deploy & Hand Off
Production launch, monitoring, documentation, and full knowledge transfer to your team.
Outcomes
Built to be measured
Weeks
to a first working increment on many engagements — full timelines are scoped to the problem, not one-size-fits-all.
100%
of code, documentation, and IP owned by you. No lock-in.
Gated
milestones with explicit acceptance criteria and sign-off.
Put a forward deployed engineer on your hardest problem.
Book a 30-minute discovery call. We will pressure-test your use case, outline a path to production, and tell you honestly whether an embedded engagement is the right fit.