In this short, Jason M. Lemkin explains that forward‑deployed engineers (FDEs) are a scarce, high‑value resource that determines whether enterprise SaaS vendors like Zendesk and Salesforce can deliver rapid, successful implementations. He argues that no vendor has enough fully trained, S‑tier FDEs to get customers up and running quickly, forcing each company to "pick lanes"—focus on the product areas where they have the strongest FDE talent. This scarcity turns software vendors into de‑facto services businesses, constrained by the same human‑resource limits as traditional consulting firms. Lemkin warns that firms with few top‑tier FDEs will lose customers, while those that can scale high‑quality FDE teams will gain a decisive competitive advantage.
Chapters
Zendesk, Salesforce. One thing that people miss a little bit in terms of the winner, which you kind of asked Rory, right, is, um, FDEs, forward deployed engineers, for the moment are a limiting factor. And let me explain what I mean. What it means is no one has enough fully trained FDEs that, that can get a customer up and running fast enough. No one has enough of these resources. Okay. And what it means and what it means is that almost every vendor has to pick lanes. They have to— you can't do as much as you'd like to do it if it was all software. You've got to pick where you're strong, right? And if you're best at digital transformation for enterprises, maybe that's what Brett Taylor is, you gotta pick that, right? And you got— and so not that these folks— I know at the sales team and folks think they're direct competitors, but you don't. Everyone has more demand than S-tier FDs to service that, so they're all picking lanes today. And that is a frontier we haven't crossed yet. The need— and they're— and so in that sense, they're all services businesses. In a sense, that is— this VC meme is true. They're not long-term services businesses, but if you need humans to train it, if you need humans to manage it, if you need humans to iterate it, you are— you have the same constraints that services businesses have. And, uh, this FDE thing is a limiter. This— it's exciting, um, because I think the losers— a lot of the losers out there can't even get at good FDEs. But if you really dig down, how many— how many great FDEs do you have? How many folks do you have that can spool up a to burn 30 days. Well, I've got 3. Well, you're gonna lose.
