What we do · Forward deployed engineers
Engineers who sit with your teams and build what they need
Engineers who sit with your leadership and the teams doing the work, watch how it really runs, then build the tools, automations and AI agents that remove the manual steps, and stay until each one is used.
- Price
- Monthly engagement, priced after a discovery call
- Time
- Reviewed with leadership every month
- For
- Leadership teams that know AI and automation should change how the company runs, and want engineers in the room with their teams rather than a project handed over the wall.
- You own
- Everything built, in your accounts and repositories
In short
A forward deployed engineer from SBD works inside your company, alongside your leadership and the teams doing the work: operations, sales, marketing, finance, back office and admin. They watch how the work is really done, agree priorities with leadership, then build the internal tools, automations and AI agents that remove the manual steps, and stay until each one is used. Everything is built in your accounts.
Is this you?
If three of these sound like your week, embedding an engineer is the place to start.
- Leadership agrees AI should change how the company runs, but nobody owns making it happen
- Every team has a backlog of small tools and automations that never gets built
- Pilots were bought or built, then quietly stopped being used
- Data sits in spreadsheets, inboxes and five systems that do not agree
- You want engineers in the room with your teams, not a project handed over the wall
What this is not
So the scope is clear before the call.
- A single well-defined build. A fixed-price project through Build is faster and cheaper.
- Extra hours on one platform you already run. That is Extend.
Most often for
What they observe
They watch the work as it happens, then change it.
Most AI projects stall because they are designed in a meeting room. Our engineers start where the work is done: your screens, your data and your workflows, in real time.
- 1How the work really runs
Beside the people doing it, in the tools they use: every copy, paste, chase and check between systems.
- 2Where the data lives
Spreadsheets, inboxes, the CRM, the accounting system and chat threads. Which copy is trusted, which is retyped.
- 3Where time and money leak
Approvals that wait, rework from errors, reports built by hand every week. Measured in hours so leadership can rank it.
- 4Where AI genuinely helps
Reading documents, drafting replies, classifying requests, answering from your own knowledge. And where a plain rule does better.
Who they work with
Every team that still does work by hand.
-
Leadership
One live view of the numbers that matter, instead of a weekly pack built by hand.
-
Operations
Orders, stock, dispatch and scheduling off spreadsheets, into tools that update themselves.
-
Sales
Leads enriched, scored and routed, follow-ups drafted, the CRM kept current without data entry.
-
Marketing
Campaign reporting, drafts from your own material, enquiries captured straight into the CRM.
-
Finance
Invoices read and matched, reminders sent on schedule, reconciliations prepared for review.
-
Back office and admin
Documents filed, forms processed, approvals routed, copy-paste between systems removed.
-
Customer service
Requests classified and answered from your knowledge base, with hard ones handed to a person.
-
People and HR
Onboarding, leave and policy questions, and hiring admin handled in one flow.
What we have built
Forward deployed engineers in practice.
- Distribution
Enquiry to invoice in one flow
Orders, dispatch and invoicing in one system, with WhatsApp updates to every stakeholder.
Read the story - Real estate
Six property automations
Mortgage reconciliation, owner summaries, utilities, maintenance scheduling and move-in capture.
Read the story - Sales
Leads answered in minutes
Capture, enrichment, AI qualification, CRM sync and a first reply, with a person in the loop.
Read the story
Forward deployed engineers
Put an engineer next to your team.
Tell us how your teams work today and where you want AI to change it. We will say plainly whether embedding an engineer is the right move.
Book a discovery call
How it runs
Forward deployed engineers, step by step.
- 1Week 1
The engineer sits with leadership and each team, maps the manual work and agrees the first priorities in writing.
- 2Weeks 2 to 4
First tools and automations go live with the team that asked for them, and the people using them are trained on the spot.
- 3Every month
A review with leadership: what shipped, what is used, hours and cost saved, and what comes next. Continue, change course or stop.
What they build
The kind of work that ships.
What to expect
From the first call to handover.
- Before the start
A discovery call with leadership, then an agreement covering engineers, time, overlap hours, access and data handling.
- Week 1
Engineers with each team. Access set up with least privilege. A first map of the manual work.
- Weeks 2 to 4
The first builds live with the teams that asked for them, training at the desk, the priority list signed off.
- Every week
A short written update: what shipped, what is in progress, what is blocked and who needs to decide.
- Every month
A review with leadership: usage, hours saved, platform and model costs, next month’s priorities.
- At the end
Documentation and runbooks handed over, and a care plan from $50 a month if you want us to keep it running.
What you get
- Engineers working inside your teams and your rituals
- A written priority list agreed with leadership, updated monthly
- Tools, automations and AI agents in production, each with an owner on your side
- A monthly report of what shipped, what is used and what it saved
- Documentation and handover for everything built
How we know it is done
- Each build is in use by the team it was built for
- Leadership signs off the priority list each month
What you own
- Everything built, in your accounts and repositories
- The documentation and runbooks
- The right to stop at the end of any month
Built on
The right model for each job, on the tools you already run.
AI models
-
Claude -
OpenAI - Gemini
- Llama
- Hugging Face
- Ollama
- LangChain
Platforms
Proof
Customer stories.
“The fastest way to find the work worth automating is to sit next to the people doing it.”
How it starts
Every project starts with an audit.
One to two weeks with the people who do the work. A costed blueprint in order of payback. The $500 is credited in full to the build.
- Audit1 to 2 weeks. $500, credited to your build.
- BlueprintIncluded in the audit’s second week. Included with the Audit; quoted separately for multi-phase programmes.
- Build2 to 8 weeks. From $1,500 one-time; internal tools from $3,000.
- Run60 days of hypercare, then monthly. Hypercare included; care plans from $50/month.
Questions
What people ask about embedding an engineer.
How is this different from Extend?
Extend gives you a platform specialist to add capacity to work you have already planned. A forward deployed engineer works with leadership and several teams to find the work worth changing, then builds it and stays until it is used.
Which teams do they work with?
Any team with repetitive work: operations, sales, marketing, finance, customer service, back office and admin. Leadership decides the order.
Do they work on site or remotely?
Either, agreed before the start. Most engagements mix time with the teams and focused build time, with overlap hours written into the agreement.
Which tools do they build with?
The tools you already pay for first: Airtable, SmartSuite, HubSpot, Make, n8n, Retool and others, plus custom code on Supabase and Vercel where a platform falls short, and AI models where they help.
How is it priced?
A monthly fee agreed after a discovery call, based on how many engineers and how much of their time. Platform and model costs pass through at cost.
Who owns the code, the workflows and the accounts?
You do, from the first sprint. Every tool, automation and database lives in accounts in your name. Code sits in your repository. Documentation is part of the deliverable. If you stop working with us, everything keeps running.
Also what we do
- What we do
Automate
Teams re-typing data between tools, chasing status by hand, or waiting a day for a report.
- What we do
Modernise
Companies running a $5M to $100M operation on spreadsheets, a legacy ERP or a tool nobody dares change.
- What we do
Advise
Founders and COOs making technology decisions without anyone senior to check them.
- What we do
Extend
Teams that already run a platform but are out of capacity, or need a skill they do not have in-house.
- What we do
Harden
Founders who shipped something real with an AI builder and need it to survive real customers, investors or an audit.
- What we do
AI agents
Teams with a multi-step task that needs reading or judgement, a clear goal and a person willing to approve the outcome.
- What we do
Integrations
Teams whose tools each hold part of the truth and who re-key data between them every day.
- What we do
Internal tools and portals
Teams running the business from spreadsheets and inboxes, or sending customers and suppliers status by email.
- What we do
Dashboards and reporting
Teams that export, clean and paste reports every week, or argue about whose number is right.
Forward deployed engineers
Talk to the people who would build it.
A discovery call. Bring the work your team still does by hand. You leave with a yes or no on fit and the first thing we would build.
Book a discovery call