A live quiz game serving 2,000+ players, with 100+ playing at once
Speedego is a real-money quiz game we built for Mathematica LLP. It serves more than 2,000 players, with over 100 playing at the same time, and runs on about $120 a month of AWS.
Forward Deployed Engineering
What is Forward Deployed Engineering?
In Forward Deployed Engineering, the engineers work directly with the people who have the problem. They help decide what to build, build it and stay until it runs in production. At Tascbar, one engineer leads each project and is accountable for it from the first conversation to the release.
The term comes from Palantir, which sends engineers into its customers’ organisations to fit its software to the way they work. AI companies now hire forward deployed engineers for the same reason. In both cases the engineer is there to get the vendor’s platform working for the customer.
Tascbar uses the idea for a different kind of client. The people who come to us need their own product designed, built and run, and they don’t have an engineering team to do it.
In practice
One engineer answers for your project.
Every project has a lead engineer who is accountable for it until the production release.
- You talk to the engineer. You work with the people building your product, so whoever answers your questions knows the code.
- Trade-offs in plain language. We work out what to build together, and we set the technical direction. When there’s a trade-off, we explain it without jargon and you choose.
- Other skills come in as needed. If the project needs design, mobile development or infrastructure work, your lead engineer brings in people from our network who do it and coordinates them.
- Working software every week. We build in short sprints. You test features as they land and can change priorities as you go.
- We finish in production. The product goes live where it’s meant to run, and we check how it behaves with real users and data.
- After launch, you choose. We stabilise and document the product. Then we hand it over to your team, or keep building under an engagement we agree on.
Compared
Four ways to get software built.
Agencies, freelancers and in-house hires all suit some projects. They differ most in who decides what to build and who answers for the result.
| What differs | Forward Deployed Engineering | Agency | Freelancers | In-house hire |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who works out what to build | The engineers, with you | An account team, then a brief to developers | You | You, once they’re hired |
| Who you talk to | The engineer who writes the code | An account or project manager | Each freelancer | Your team |
| Adding a skill mid-project | Your lead engineer brings it in | Depends on who the agency has free | You find and brief someone | You hire again |
| Who answers for production | Tascbar, until it runs | Varies by contract | Usually you | You |
| What you manage | The decisions | The relationship | The team | Everything |
If you already have an engineering team and want extra developers, we’re probably not the right fit. We take on a whole project with one engineer accountable for it, and we don’t staff other teams.
Fit
When it’s the right choice.
- You have the problem and the budget, and no technical team. You know what you want to achieve and need someone to take responsibility for getting there.
- You want one accountable party. One team handles the whole project, so there are no handoffs between vendors for you to manage.
- The product has to work with a real business. It has to connect to payment providers, databases, app stores or systems you already run, and someone has to check it all works once real users arrive.
Projects built this way
Three products that went from a problem to production this way.
Turning 15,000 scanned pages into 540,000 exam questions
Kerala PSC aspirants mostly study from scanned Malayalam papers. For Mathematica LLP, we turned more than 15,000 of those pages into a 540,000-question mock-test app that runs without any servers of its own.
A custom animated Webflow website, designed and built in two weeks
Brainwire Business Analytics helps EdTech and quick-commerce brands grow. We designed their website, made every animated graphic and built it in Webflow, two weeks from kickoff to launch.
Common questions
Who is Forward Deployed Engineering for?
Founders and businesses with a problem to solve and no engineering team to solve it. Past projects include a live quiz game, a mock-test app built from 15,000 scanned pages and a website that had to launch in two weeks.
What does a project cost?
It depends on the scope, and the first two stages, Understand and Define, are there to settle it. At the end of them you get a proposal with the plan, a timeline and a cost estimate, before any build work starts. The contact form asks for a budget range so we can plan the first conversation around it.
How long does a first version take?
It depends on what it has to do. Brainwire’s website went from kickoff to launch in two weeks. An app with accounts, payments and a backend takes longer. The Define stage ends with a timeline for your project.
Do I need a technical co-founder or a specification?
No. You need a clear idea of the problem and who has it, and we work out the rest with you. You decide what the product does, and we handle the engineering.
What happens after launch?
Real usage shows where the product needs work, so we stabilise it and document how it’s built and run. After that you can hand it to your own team or keep improving it with us under an ongoing engagement.
Where is Tascbar based?
Perinthalmanna, in Kerala, India. We work with founders and businesses around the world, and we’ve written about how we run projects across a time difference.
You bring the problem. We take it to production.
Our office
- Perinthalmanna
MEAEC, State Highway 39
Library & Information Centre, Nellikunnu
Vengoor, Perinthalmanna
Kerala 679325, India