Insights
Field notes on forward-deployed engineering.
How the field motion becomes a platform, why the last mile is the product, and what an enterprise should actually keep when the engineers leave.
The Margin-for-Moat Trade Has a Failure Mode
The margin-for-moat trade only pays if field work compounds into a platform. The difference between a moat and a body shop is one measurable number.
The Difference Between an FDE and a Consultant Is What’s Left Behind
What separates a forward-deployed engineer from a consultant isn’t the title — it’s the leave-behind: code, evals, runbooks, and the record.
Every FDE Team Is Rebuilding the Same Internal Platform
Foundry, Distyl’s Distillery, Sierra’s agent SDLC, OpenAI’s field split: every forward-deployed team converges on the same platform. Nobody sells it.
Enterprises Don’t Fail at AI. They Fail at the Last Mile.
Pilots clear the bar and then stall where capability has to become accountability. The last mile is an engineering deliverable, not a change program.
The Named Human Is the Feature
Enterprises don’t buy autonomy; they buy autonomy with accountable gates. The named human approving privileged actions is the feature, not the compromise.
LockedIn Labs FDE is the platform forward-deployed engineers carry into the enterprise. Read the platform brief → Back to the front door →