IF-118
Map quote-to-invoice path across CRM and QuickBooks
Murrieta
Forward deployed.
A software engineer on your site in Murrieta and Temecula, shipping to production in six weeks. Not a demo. Not a deck. Something that runs.
Fixed feeSix weeks to productionCode stays yours
Deployment boardUpdated this morning
Scoped
Weeks 1–2
IF-121
Index warranty terms and submittals for field lookup
Temecula
On site
Building
IF-104
After-hours intake agent, books against live calendar
Menifee
Shipped
Running in production
IF-092
Dispatch board pulling live crew and job status
Lake Elsinore
IF-087
Nightly reconciliation between field software and books
Riverside
Sample tickets. Clients see a board like this from the first week.
What a forward deployed engineer actually is.
A forward deployed engineer is a software engineer who works inside the client's business rather than from a vendor's office: sitting with the people doing the work, building against their real systems and real data, and shipping straight to production. The model came out of enterprise software companies who found that generic products kept failing on messy real-world operations.
It applies just as well to a forty-person contractor in Murrieta as it does to a Fortune 500. The bottleneck is never the model. It's that nobody outside your business knows how a job actually moves from the phone to the truck to the invoice, and you can't automate a process nobody has watched.
Najee Walker Principal Forward Deployed Engineer
Six weeks to production.
One workflow, built in your office and running on real jobs. The repository is yours from the first commit, and your office staff are trained on it in person before I leave.
Five things I build, in the order they usually ship.
AI workflow automation
Kill the copy-paste work between your systems.
Internal tools and dashboards
One screen instead of six tabs and a whiteboard.
AI intake and response
Answer every lead in under a minute, day or night.
Private knowledge systems
Your manuals, contracts, and job history, searchable in plain English.
AI readiness audit
A two-week look at where automation actually pays.
Code stays yours.
Built in your cloud accounts, in your repository, from the first commit.
Three phases. You can stop after any of them.
Nobody signs a twelve-month contract to find out whether this works. Each phase produces something you keep whether or not you buy the next one.
Two weeks
Audit.
I spend two half-days on site watching how work moves, then get read-only access to your systems. It ends in a ranked list of automation opportunities with cost, effort, and expected payback, plus an explicit list of what is not worth automating yet.
You keep
The ranked list, the no-go list, and a recorded walkthrough.
Six weeks
Pilot.
One workflow off that list, built and put into production on real jobs with real users. Everything runs in your cloud accounts, the repository is yours from the first commit, and your office staff are trained on it in person before I leave.
You keep
A workflow in production, the source, the infrastructure, and a trained team.
Ongoing
Embedded.
One day a week on site, shipping continuously against a shared backlog, with monitoring and on-call for what I built. Monthly review covering what shipped, what it costs to run, and what is next. Thirty days notice to end it.
You keep
Everything shipped, monitoring and evals, and monthly cost reporting.
Prices are published so you can decide before you call.
Readiness audit
$4,500
One-time
Two weeks. On-site discovery, systems access review, ranked opportunity list.
- Two half-days on site
- Read-only review of your CRM, accounting, and field software
- Ranked automation opportunities with cost and payback
- Recorded walkthrough of the findings
Pilot build
$18,000
One-time
Six weeks. One workflow, shipped to production and running on real jobs.
- Everything in the readiness audit
- One workflow built, tested, and deployed
- Your team trained on it in person
- Source code and infrastructure in your accounts
- 30 days of post-launch support
Embedded retainer
$9,500/mo
Monthly, cancel with 30 days notice
Ongoing. On site weekly, shipping continuously, on call when it breaks.
- One day a week on site
- Continuous delivery against a shared backlog
- Monitoring, evals, and on-call for what I built
- Monthly review with cost and usage reporting
- Cancel with 30 days notice
Card or ACH through Stripe. Audits are invoiced up front; pilots are split across two payments; retainers bill monthly and cancel with thirty days notice.
Approximate mid-morning drive times from Murrieta.
Close enough to show up.
On-site work is standard for anyone within about an hour of Murrieta, which covers southwest Riverside County and most of the Inland Empire. If you are further out, the audit can run remote and the pilot can be scoped around fewer site days. Say so, and I will tell you honestly whether it still works.
The ones that come up every time.
What is a forward deployed engineer?
A forward deployed engineer is a software engineer who works inside the client's business rather than from a vendor's office — sitting with the people doing the work, building against their real systems and data, and shipping to production directly. The model comes from enterprise software companies who found that generic products failed on messy real-world operations, and it applies just as well to a 40-person contractor as to a Fortune 500.
How is this different from hiring an AI agency?
An agency sells you a project scoped from a call and delivered by a rotating team. A forward deployed engineer is one named person on your site, in your systems, shipping code you own. There is no account manager between you and the person writing the software.
Which cities do you serve?
Inland Forward serves Murrieta, Temecula, Menifee, Lake Elsinore, and the wider Inland Empire including Riverside, Corona, Moreno Valley, Ontario, and Rancho Cucamonga. On-site work is standard for clients within about an hour of Murrieta.
What does an AI automation project cost for a small business?
Engagements start at a fixed-fee two-week readiness audit and move to a six-week pilot build if the numbers justify it. Pricing is published on the pricing page rather than quoted case by case, so you can decide whether to have a conversation before you have one.
Who owns the code and the data?
You do. Everything is built in your cloud accounts under your credentials, and the source code is in your repository from the first commit. There is no platform to be locked into and no per-seat license.
How long before something is actually running?
The pilot build is scoped to put one workflow into production in six weeks, running on real jobs with real users. If a workflow cannot get to production in six weeks it is too big to be a first project, and it gets broken down.
Do you work with businesses that have no technical staff?
Yes, and that is the common case. Most Inland Empire operators run on off-the-shelf field software with no engineer on payroll. Part of the engagement is leaving behind documentation and training so the system is operable by your office staff.
Tell me where the work gets stuck.
Five minutes of specifics beats a discovery call. I read every one and reply within one business day with a real read on where automation would pay for you first, or that it wouldn't, which is also an answer.
One email a month, written after the fact.
What actually shipped for an Inland Empire operator that month, what it cost to run, and what broke. No predictions, no roundups.
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