Is forward deployed engineering just consulting renamed?

Partly, yes. There is also a real structural difference, and it is worth being able to tell them apart, because the pricing is different and so is what you get.

What the term originally meant

Forward deployed engineering describes product engineers, from the company that builds the software, embedded inside the customer’s team. They write code in the customer’s environment, and what they learn flows back into the core product. The model exists because some software cannot be sold as a finished thing: it has to be fitted.

What it often means now

Two other things get the same label. The first is staff augmentation, where engineers sit with your team but there is no product behind them and nothing flows back. The second is a delivery team from a services firm, relabelled. Neither is illegitimate. Both are priced as though they were the first thing.

Why the distinction is commercial, not semantic

Real FDE should get cheaper over time, because each deployment makes the underlying product better and the next fit faster. Staff augmentation does not: rates go up with seniority and nothing compounds. If a firm pitches FDE and the second-year quote is higher than the first with the same scope, you are buying augmentation.

When augmentation is the right answer anyway

If you have a clear internal roadmap and simply lack hands, augmentation is honest and often the best value. The mistake is buying it expecting product leverage. Ask for the model by name, and price it accordingly.

What to write into the contract

One line resolves most of it: state whether deliverables become part of the vendor’s product or remain your bespoke code, and who maintains each. Firms running genuine FDE will agree readily, because it describes what they already do.