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Analysis

December 15, 2025

Forward deployed engineers, the ‘red hot’ role shaking up Europe’s top AI startups

High-profile companies like Mistral, Lovable and ElevenLabs are all listing openings for the Palantir-inspired role


FDEs are software engineers who embed directly with a customer to help them identify and solve problems. Photo by ThisisEngineering on Unsplash

For the past two years European AI startups have been fighting to secure the best scientific talent, hoping that hiring teams of elite researchers would give them a competitive edge.

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Daphné Leprince-Ringuet

Daphné Leprince-Ringuet is a senior reporter for Sifted, based in Paris. She covers French tech and writes Sifted's AI and Deeptech newsletter . You can find her on X and LinkedIn

Miriam Partington

Miriam Partington was a senior reporter at Sifted, based in Berlin. She covered the DACH region and the future of work, and wrote Startup Life , a weekly newsletter on what it takes to build a startup.

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