Engagement model · Forward Deployed Engineers
A senior engineering pod in your team, for as long as you need one.
Releaseworks® Forward Deployed Engineers work as part of your team, in your tools, your standups and your repos. A day, a month, or longer, scaling up and down as the work changes. Whatever your challenge, we have solved it before, at scale.
Partnering with Releaseworks really raised the bar for us; transparent, structured and professional. It feels like our company motor just got a powerful, high-performance upgrade!
Carola KrasCOO & Co-founder, iClaim
Choose your area
Rockstar Engineer In Your Team, Right Now
- Complete: strategy lead, lead engineer and senior engineer, one price
- Flexible: a week, a month, or longer, scaling as the work changes
- Proven: 10+ years in production, we have solved this before at scale
- Fast: in your repos within days, shipping in the first week
- Lasting: your team levels up while the work ships
Pick the area you need. See what we would do first, who you get, and what it costs.
Partnering with Releaseworks really raised the bar for us; transparent, structured and professional. It feels like our company motor just got a powerful, high-performance upgrade!
Carola KrasCOO & Co-founder, iClaim
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The problem
Consultants leave a deck. Contractors leave a gap.
The hardest problems in your product are the ones nobody on your team has the time or the scar tissue to solve. Traditional consulting answers that with a discovery phase, a slide deck and an invoice, then leaves the actual work with you.
Staff augmentation answers it with a body you have to manage, brief and review, who leaves the moment the contract ends and takes everything they learned with them.
Forward Deployed Engineering is neither. A pod of three sits on your side of the wall, owns an outcome, and makes your team better at running it.
Signals you will recognise
- A critical problem that has been on the roadmap for three quarters
- A report full of recommendations nobody has had the capacity to execute
- Contractors who shipped, then left with all the context in their heads
- A team that is good but has never done this particular thing before
- Work that needs to start now, not after a two-month procurement cycle
Engagement model
Our pods work within your team, not as a supplier outside it.
Same standups, same board, same repos. What changes is that a self-managing pod of senior engineers who have solved your problem before is now doing the work alongside your team.
The benefits
Flexible, proven, fast to start, and your team is better for it.
Flexibility. Engage for a day, a month, or longer, and move between the two as the work changes. Scale up when it is heavy, scale down when it is not, without a multi-year commitment or a change request for every adjustment.
Proven expertise. You get a pod of three, each with 10 or more years of production experience in exactly the area you are struggling with, and behind them the rest of the team across AI, DevOps and Security. No ramp-up on your budget, no learning on your incidents.
A start measured in days. Access and introductions, then real work in your repos in the first week, rather than a discovery phase and a two-month procurement cycle.
Your team keeps the capability. We pair, review and document as we go, so your engineers can run and extend the work after we scale back.
How the model works
- The pod works as part of your team, not alongside it
- Your tools, your board, your repos, your standups, your incident rota
- Your review process and your definition of done, nothing new to adopt
- Accountable for an outcome, not for hours logged
- Deliberate ramp-down, so there is no handover cliff
What you get
What a Forward Deployed Engineer brings
A named pod inside your team
A strategy lead, a lead engineer and a senior engineer in your standups, your board, your incident channel and your repos. Part of the team, not a supplier on the other side of a contract.
End-to-end delivery, strategy to shipped code
Roadmap, hiring strategy and board reporting from the strategy lead, integration and delivery from the lead engineer, hands-on build from the senior engineer. One price for all three.
Self-managing, no overhead for your leads
The pod runs itself. Your engineering leads get outcomes and weekly demos, not another three people to brief, unblock and review.
A team of heavy hitters, not a bench
Every seat is filled by someone who has solved this at scale before. No juniors learning on your budget, no rotating faces.
Your tools, your ways of working
We work in your stack, your ticketing, your review process and your definition of done. Nothing new to adopt, no parallel process to manage.
Proven expertise, from day one
Ten or more years shipping and operating production systems, in the exact area you are struggling with. No ramp-up on your budget.
Flexibility as the work changes
A day, a month, or longer. Scale up when the work is heavy, scale down when it is not, without a long lock-in or a change request for every adjustment.
Your team levels up while the work ships
Pairing, reviews, runbooks and decisions made in the open, so your engineers can run and extend everything we build.
Outcomes owned, not tickets closed
The pod is accountable for the result, makes the call, ships the fix, and stands behind it in the retro.
How it works in practice
Clear stages. You're in control.
Match
You pick the area you need, AI, DevOps or Security, and answer a few quick questions. We put forward the pod who has solved it before, with the rates in writing.
Embed
Access, tooling and introductions in days. Your standups, your board, your incident rota, your repos. They work as one of your team, not alongside it.
Ship
Real work into production from the first week, in your stack and your process, with weekly demos so progress is visible to your team and your board.
Transfer
Your engineers take the wheel while ours are still there to catch things. Then we scale back, or move on to the next problem.
Why Releaseworks®
A team you can trust with production.
Senior engineers, based in London
Over 20 years building and running production SaaS and business-critical platforms for global brands across finance, health, and retail.
Full-time, background-checked staff
No subcontractors, no offshore handoffs. The people on the kickoff call are the people writing the code.
Embedded with your team
We work in your repo, your tools, and your standups, so your engineers see every decision and keep the capability after we leave.
Trusted advisors, not vendors
Founders and CTOs keep us on speed-dial long after the engagement ends, because we tell them the truth and stay accountable for outcomes.
The disciplines
Three disciplines. One way of deploying.
Same operating model across all three: engineers embedded, outcomes owned, capability transferred.
AI FDE
Get your software delivery team building better software faster with AI.
A pod of senior engineers who are AI experts joins your team, in your standups and your repos. They change how the team builds, so you ship better software faster.
Security FDE
Close the doors you cannot see, and prove it to customers.
Most breaches do not come from clever attackers. They come from unmonitored doors, unowned systems and security bolted on too late. Our Forward Deployed security engineers work inside your team to find what is exposed, shut it down, and leave software that is defensible by design.
DevOps FDE
Ship faster, break less, and keep the platform after we leave.
Our Forward Deployed platform engineers embed with your team and turn ad-hoc deployments into a reliable, observable, self-service platform your engineers actually want to use. Same repos, same standups, same on-call rota as your team.
FAQ
The questions we get before kickoff.
What does a Forward Deployed Engineer actually do?
The same work your best engineer would do, on the problem you cannot get to. They join your standups, pick up work on your board, write code in your repos, respond to incidents, and make architectural calls in the open with your team. The output is running software, not a report.
How do we see rates and what you would do first?
Choose the discipline you need, AI, DevOps or Security. Each page asks a few quick questions scoped to that area, then shows what we would tackle first, the pod we would put on it, and what it costs.
How fast can one start?
Usually within days. Once you have the rates and we have agreed scope, the bottleneck is access and onboarding, not our bench. Most engagements have work in production inside the first week.
Who do we get?
A three-person Releaseworks pod: a strategy lead, a lead engineer and a senior engineer, UK-based, background-checked, each with 10 or more years shipping and operating production systems. No subcontractors, no offshore handoffs. We match the pod to your problem across our AI, Security and DevOps disciplines.
How do we engage them, daily or monthly?
Either. Weekly suits focused, bounded problems. Monthly suits sustained work where you want the pod fully part of the team. Both cover all three people. You can move between the two, scale up when the work is heavy, and scale down when it is not.
What happens when the work is done?
Your team already owns it. We work in the open, document as we go, and ramp down deliberately, so there is no handover cliff. You can keep us on for the next problem, move to ongoing Care, or take it from there.
Do you sign NDAs?
Yes, as standard. Everything we build with you is yours.
Next step
Get a pod on your side of the wall.
Choose the discipline you need. Each page asks a few quick questions scoped to that area, then shows what we would tackle first, who you get, and what it costs.