Forward Deployed Engineering at Cursor — Pauline Brunet
Jul 14, 2026 · 20:47
Pauline Brunet, VP of Forward Deployed Engineering at Cursor, explains how to build an effective FDE team by mapping customer digital maturity and product customization to the right engagement model—self-service, traditional SaaS deployment, advisory, or embedded transformation. She defines the ideal FDE as a highly technical engineer with strong customer-facing skills, capable of scoping impactful projects, co-developing with customer teams, and feeding insights back to product. Cursor’s FDE team uses a project-based approach, hires experienced unicorns (5+ year software engineers), and structures around geographies, industries, and product SMEs. Best practices include solving the right problem, defining success metrics upfront, keeping scope directional, involving customers at every step, measuring ROI (revenue, cost, risk), and leaving documentation behind. Brunet advises learning fast, pivoting, partnering with system integrators, and not being afraid to say no to mismatched use cases.
