What is Forward Deployed?
“[Forward-deployed engineers] know that the only valuable software is not how exquisite its code is or how beautiful the language . . . It’s only valuable if it means something for the end customer.”
Forward Deployed is a weekly publication and podcast exploring the intersection of AI, software development, and the enterprise from the point of view of practitioners who are actually building with these technologies every day.
It’s for AI engineers focused on finding practical ways to deploy the most exciting technology of our lifetime. The magic of LLMs is that they’re trained, not programmed—meaning those of us building on top of them are discovering capabilities, not just utilizing them. This is a space to share those discoveries with fellow explorers living at this edge.
The Hosts
Noah Brier
Noah is co-founder of Alephic, an AI-first strategy and software partner that helps marketing organizations solve complex challenges through custom AI systems. Alephic works with enterprise clients like PayPal, EY, Meta, Amazon, and Ford, focusing on building proprietary AI capabilities that leverage their unique data and expertise rather than delivering PowerPoints.
Previously, Noah co-founded and sold Percolate, a marketing technology platform that worked with brands like Unilever and GE (acquired by Seismic in 2019). He’s been recognized as one of Fast Company’s most creative people in business and served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council for Social Media.
Lance Martin
Lance is a founding engineer at LangChain with a PhD from Stanford. His journey from computer vision research to building one of the most important tools in the AI ecosystem gives him a unique vantage point on how the field is evolving.
Before LangChain, Lance was the computer vision lead for Uber’s self-driving truck program, where he learned firsthand about deploying ML systems in safety-critical environments. He created LangChain Academy with 35+ lessons on building agents and the popular “RAG from Scratch” course (450k+ views on FreeCodeCamp).
Why Subscribe?
For AI Practitioners: Get insights from people who are actually building production AI systems, not just talking about them. Learn about real architectures, actual failure modes, and proven patterns.
For Engineering Leaders: Understand how AI is changing software development, why ICs are adopting faster than managers, and how to build organizations that can actually leverage these tools.
For Business Leaders: Cut through the AI hype to understand what’s actually possible today, what’s coming soon, and why the gap between demos and production remains so large.
For the AI-Curious: Get a grounded perspective on what AI means for software, business, and society from two people who spend their days in the trenches.
Why Us?
We’re practitioners, not pundits. Both hosts are actively building with AI every day—Noah through Alephic’s enterprise engagements and his extensive experiments, Lance through LangChain’s position at the center of the AI engineering ecosystem.
We focus on what works, not what might. Instead of speculating about AGI timelines or debating consciousness, we discuss the practical challenges of context windows, agent architectures, and enterprise adoption patterns.
We bridge multiple worlds. From Lance’s journey through computer vision and self-driving trucks to Noah’s path from marketing SaaS to AI consulting, we bring perspectives from academia, startups, and enterprise.
We’re building in public. Noah’s open-source projects, Lance’s educational content, and our willingness to share both successes and failures create a learning environment for the entire community.
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