Scharfstein: Forward-deployed engineering must feed custom client fixes back into platform core
Ben Scharfstein · How Scale AI is Pioneering the Future of Work · Aug 26, 2025 · at 15:24
Ben Scharfstein is Head of Product for Enterprise Applications at Scale AI. He discusses how forward-deployed engineers balance custom client deliverables with core product development.
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“Really the mandate of the forward deployed engineer is to do that. You do need to say, okay, we have 60% out of the box, but that last 40%, maybe it's a data integration, it's a visualization, it's an agent that we haven't built yet. You do need to do that work. But you also need to have a keen eye and say, what are the things that we should bring back? What are the things that I can go back to my platform team and say, Hey, this is super important. This is repeatable across a bunch of different customers. And if I had this, I would be 10 X faster at scale.”
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