FDE hiring keeps scaling up,
and Databricks has moved to the front
Nine months of Forward Deployed Engineer hiring across 13 companies that post the role in volume: open roles climbed sharply, Databricks split the role into industry teams and took the lead, and a layer of managers is forming · November 2025 to July 2026
Open FDE roles in total
377
across 13 companies, up from 106 in November
Databricks open FDE roles
96
after holding in the low teens through May
Leads and managers
60
open FDE roles, up from 16 last November
Now leading the set
Databricks
past Palantir, OpenAI, and Google
Open Forward Deployed roles across the company set
Open FDE roles at each month-end, reconstructed from when each posting opened and closed
The mix of Forward Deployed roles, by type over time
Open FDE roles across the set, split by what the hire builds, at each month-end
Every company shapes its Forward Deployed team differently
Open FDE roles by type, company by company, at each month-end (each panel on its own scale)
Databricks climbed to the top of Forward Deployed hiring
Each company ranked by open FDE roles, month by month (rank 1 = the most)
What the data says
- The role is scaling up: open FDE roles across the set climbed from 106 last November to 377 by mid-July, and from 106 to 249 among the companies tracked the whole time.
- Databricks moved to the front: after holding in the low teens for seven months, its open FDE roles jumped to 77 in June and 96 by mid-July, split into industry teams, passing Palantir and OpenAI.
- A management layer is forming: leads and managers among open FDE roles nearly quadrupled, from 16 to 60, and managers and org roles are now 20% of the set's open FDE roles.
- Engineers still dominate: 301 of the 377 open FDE roles are hands-on engineers, so the role is industrializing, not being replaced.
Want recruiting signals like these? Timeplot tracks hiring momentum, freezes, and role shifts across thousands of companies. Get in touch.
Get the next issue
One data-driven hiring trend, in your inbox. No spam.
Need the data behind these charts for your team? Contact us.