Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands
I help enterprises put AI agents into production and get a return on them. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, I embed in clients' operations, working alongside the people who actually do the work until I understand how it gets done. Whether an AI project delivers value usually comes down to that understanding far more than to model capability. I run FDE Hub (fdehub.org), an independent publication on the craft of Forward Deployed Engineering: twice-weekly essays from live client work, and interviews with FDEs from Palantir, Sierra, Ramp, Cresta and others. The State of FDE report, an analysis of 2,000 practitioner profiles, is the most comprehensive look at the role published to date. I've spoken on this work at the FDE Conference in San Francisco. Before this: six years at Elastic, training over 4,000 engineers at Fortune 500 companies and government agencies in 20+ countries, progressing from Engineer to Principal. Six years founding and bootstrapping Socializer on £15K to 3,000+ registrations. AI engineering and product at Loop, on NLP systems processing a million emails a day. If you're working on enterprise AI adoption, or you're an FDE yourself, FDE Hub is where I think out loud: fdehub.org.
Independent publication on the craft of Forward Deployed Engineering (fdehub.org). Twice-weekly essays drawn from live AI deployment work, and interviews with FDE practitioners and leaders from Palantir, Sierra, Ramp, Cresta, Baseten and others. Published the State of FDE report, an analysis of 2,000 practitioner profiles, the most comprehensive study of the role to date. Host a private community of practising FDEs and regular office hours.
Embed directly with SME and enterprise clients to deliver AI Agents for real-world operations. Build WITH clients, not FOR them. Currently defining what this role looks like - building the FDE playbook alongside the product team. Day to day: 🚀 Delivering rapid automation through direct collaboration with client operations teams ⚡ Choosing the right tool for each problem - from AI/LLMs to deterministic code to Excel 🎯 Reducing traditional vendor timelines from months to weeks through embedded delivery 🛠️ Bringing implementation insights back to product - every client engagement informs what we build next
Progressed from Education Engineer → Education Architect → Principal in 4 years. Delivered technical training to Fortune 500 companies and government agencies globally. Key achievements: 🎓 Trained 4,000+ engineers across 200+ enterprise clients including Fortune 500 and government agencies 🌍 Delivered training in 20+ countries, both on-site and virtual, maintaining 4.8/5 satisfaction rating 🎤 Spoke at technical meetups and conferences, representing Elastic's education initiatives 📚 Maintained and developed technical curriculum aligned with product releases 👥 Mentored new Education Engineers through onboarding and shadowing programs
Founded and bootstrapped a platform for spontaneous small-group events. Launched in London, expanded to Amsterdam where it reached 3,000+ users. Key achievements: 🚀 Grew Amsterdam market to 400+ monthly active users and 3,000+ registrations post-pivot 💰 Bootstrapped entire operation on £15,000 - no external funding across 6 years ⚙️ Built complete backend infrastructure while managing product and team 🌍 Successfully pivoted from London to Amsterdam market in 2021 👥 Recruited and led team of 6 across product, design, and engineering
Led AI development and product strategy for an intelligent email client that worked with existing email accounts. Managed team of 4 engineers, balancing product vision with hands-on development. Key achievements: 📧 Built email classification system processing 1M+ daily messages with 94% accuracy 📍 Shipped NLP features extracting time, location, and action items from emails automatically 🤖 Developed conversational AI assistants that helped users manage inbox 3x faster 📎 Created smart attachment detection identifying document types and suggesting relevant actions 🚀 Grew from beta to 15,000+ active users through rapid feature iteration and user feedback loops Tech stack: Python, Flask, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Celery, RabbitMQ, scikit-learn, NLTK, AWS/Azure