I’m a KPMG forward-deployed engineer. AI has moved my job beyond writing code.
A KPMG forward-deployed engineer describes how his role has shifted from manual coding to managing AI applications and coaching clients. He emphasizes that AI's value depends heavily on the context provided by human experts.
Why it matters
This reflects the broader professional shift where technical roles are evolving from pure development to AI orchestration and strategic implementation.
KPMG's Justin Johnsen has been an FDE at the firm for over a year now. KPMG Justin Johnsen started at KPMG in 2020 as a federal Salesforce developer, writing code by hand. Over the past year, he switched into a new role as a forward-deployed engineer at KPMG. His work involves giving AI applications the right context and coaching clients on how to use them. This is a conversation with Justin Johnsen, the lead technical architect at KPMG. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. I joined KPMG six years ago, and I've been a forward-deployed engineer for about a year, working across different clients. When I started with KPMG as a software engineer , all the code was written by hand. I studied computer science. I built my career in architecture and later got into consulting and client work.
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