Services · Fractional FDE - Everyone can now buy the same intelligence,
the edge moves to deployment.
The fractional FDE service is the top of Assist IQ’s ladder: a dedicated forward-deployed engineer who embeds in your business, maps how the work actually happens, then builds and runs the AI systems, agents and automations that carry the load. Bespoke by definition, managed after the build, and proven in the hardest place to fake it: compliance-grade oil and gas operations.
The model - Forward-deployed means the engineer comes to the work.
The term comes from enterprise software, where the most effective builds were never done from a vendor’s office. They were done by an engineer sitting inside the client’s operation, learning its messy reality, and building against that.
- Embedded, not commissioned. No requirements document written from a distance. The engineer works inside your business first: shadowing the workflow, reading the documents, finding where the real drag lives. The brief is discovered, not assumed.
- Built against your live operation. The systems, the AI employees and agents, and the automations get built around how your business actually runs, tested against real work, and adjusted when reality answers back. Nothing generic survives that process.
- Stays, runs it, improves it. The engagement does not end at handover, because the value is not the software. It is having an engineer who knows your operation keep the systems matched to it, month after month.
Why this exists now - This model used to be for companies with eight-figure budgets.
An embedded engineer could only ever serve one client at a time, so only the biggest contracts justified one. AI changed the arithmetic, and we built the service on the new numbers.
- The engineering muscle is now a fleet. One engineer directing a fleet of AI agents has the build capacity that used to need a team: automations, integrations, documents, data work. The thinking stays human. The heavy lifting does not have to.
- Fractional, because that is what you need. Most businesses do not need an embedded engineer five days a week. They need one who knows the operation deeply and carries it forward every week. Fractional means you pay for that, not for a full-time seat.
- Judgment is the product. What you are buying is not hours of building. It is an operator who has run businesses deciding what should be built, what should not, and what should be left alone. The fleet makes that judgment affordable.
The engagement - Four stages. The first one has the only price we publish.
Fractional FDE work is the top of our ladder, and it is bespoke by definition, so it is priced to scope after we understand your operation. Every engagement starts the same way.
- 1. The AI Operations Day. One working day inside your business, watching how the work moves and speaking with the people carrying it. Within five working days you receive a written Opportunity Map. It is £750 per day, and the full fee is credited against a qualifying pilot or build agreed within 60 days. This is where the day decides whether the real need is a narrow pilot, BusinessOS, or an embedded engineer. How the Operations Day works.
- 2. Embed and map. The engineer gets inside the operation: the workflows, the documents, the compliance obligations, the things that live in one person’s head. The output is a map of where systems will carry real load, agreed with you before anything gets built.
- 3. Build against the real thing. The systems get built and tested inside your live operation, in stages, with a human checkpoint on anything that matters. Built from tested patterns, bespoke where your business genuinely is bespoke, and nowhere else.
- 4. Run, measure, improve. The engineer stays fractional: running the systems, watching the numbers, extending what works. You get a business that keeps getting more systemised, without hiring a systems team to do it.
Proven where the stakes are highest: heavy industry.
The flagship proof is oil and gas. HALO Intervention Services had its well intervention operations taken off paper and rebuilt as compliance-grade electronic processes, with the entire ISO 9001 management system generated on automation principles. That is forward-deployed engineering: embedded in the operation, built against its reality, held to audit standard.
The same method runs ScottishWill, the will-writing business our founder built, where one person carries the admin of four. If an embedded engineer and an AI fleet can carry compliance-grade operations and a regulated-adjacent legal-services pipeline, they can carry your operation.
Who it's for - Right for a specific kind of business. Wrong for others.
We would rather tell you now than after a review. The fractional FDE service fits businesses with real operational depth. Simpler needs have cheaper answers, and we will point you at them.
- Right: established and systems-poor. Years of trading, real revenue, and operations still running on spreadsheets, email and one or two people’s heads. The gap between what the business does and what it has systemised is where an FDE earns their keep.
- Right: compliance-heavy or knowledge-heavy. Certificates, procedures, audits, technical documents, tribal knowledge a retirement could erase. If losing one person would genuinely hurt the business, that is the signal.
- Wrong: a single fix wanted quickly. If the need is missed-call handling, follow-up and reviews, you do not need an embedded engineer. You need the Managed Service, and it will cost you far less. If you want your whole operation on one layer as a product, that is BusinessOS.
Questions we get asked about the FDE service.
The jargon translated, the costs stated honestly, the fit judged before the sale.
What is a forward-deployed engineer?
A forward-deployed engineer, or FDE, is an engineer who embeds inside a client business rather than building from a vendor office. They learn the real workflows on the ground, then design, build and run the systems against that reality. The model was proven in enterprise software, where the engineer is the product. Assist IQ delivers it fractionally, with AI agents carrying the build work.
How is this different from hiring a consultant or an agency?
A consultant studies your business and leaves you a report. An agency builds to a brief and leaves you a system. A forward-deployed engineer embeds, writes the brief from what they find, builds against your live operation and then stays to run and improve what they built. The accountability never transfers to your team, because the engineer keeps it.
Do we need to be an oil and gas company?
No. Oil and gas is where the model is proven at its hardest, because compliance-grade operations leave nowhere to hide, and it is the industry our founder ran operations in for 19 years. The same method applies to any established business with deep workflows: engineering, property, professional services, manufacturing. If your operation is complex enough to need mapping, it qualifies.
What does a fractional FDE cost?
There is no published price, because the honest answer depends on scope: how much of your operation the engineer carries and how much gets built. It is a serious engagement, priced well below a full-time engineering hire because it is fractional and the build work is done by an AI fleet. Every engagement starts with the AI Operations Day at £750 per day, which is the only price we publish. Pilots, builds and multi-site engagements are scoped to the work and priced in writing before anything starts.
How much of our time does it take?
Front-loaded, then light. The embed stage needs real hours from you and your key people, because the map is only as good as what we see. After that, your involvement drops to approvals and a regular review: the engineer runs the systems and brings you decisions, not tasks. If a build ever needs zero of your time, be suspicious of it.
Start with a free enquiry
Not a discovery call. Not a pitch with a calendar link. Five questions about how your business actually runs, and it costs nothing. Ross reads every enquiry himself and replies within one working day with a straight first answer: what looks worth automating, and what doesn’t.
If it looks like we can genuinely help, the next step is the AI Operations Day: one working day inside the business, followed by a written Opportunity Map. It shows what is hurting, what should stay human, and the best one or two jobs to prove first. That part comes later, and only if it makes sense for you.
Free to ask. No obligation. Ross replies personally within one working day.