Well, in this case the FWE will be payed by you to push you spending more money so the ceo is being able to brag that they are working with openai (instead of mckenzie)
Surely the various contracts are pricing in the salary for the FDE, as a feature. "Not only are we giving you terrible software that is impossible for outsiders to learn and operate, but we are also installing a double-agent in your organization who will ensure you don't migrate elsewhere. Pay up unless you want to lose out on the AIs."
There might be other motivations but at least thats how the term differenciates.
For OpenAI having more companies using OpenAI and buying tokens etc. helps them and they do have a typical issue: they can move as fast as they want, if no one else is moving with them...
Different, this would be a "field engineer", which is pretty common for supporting customers which might have a lot of technical needs around your product. For example, some microcontroller vendors are pretty famous for having poor or non-existent documentation and instead rely on the dude on-site to tell your engineers how everything works.
These are much worse. You can generally fire consultants. These people are from OpenAI. Good luck ever cancelling or reducing your OpenAI contracts when they have people inside your organization. Have fun trying to even discuss it as these people will no doubt insert themselves into every meeting and watercooler discussion involving the contracts they are are paid to protect.
Doesn't ASML have Engineers who work with TSMC to make sure their complex machines works optimally within their manufacturing facility? How is this any different?
Yeah, this is a totally normal thing that businesses do (particularly for complicated technology). However, the dysfunctions of many companies make these kinds of people far more powerful than they should be.
Yes but when you buy any billion-dollar machine you are committed to a long term relationship with the vendor. OpenAI is more akin to a cloud service. In a few months you may wish to switch to a different service. Asml customers operated on decades, not months.
Consultant you pay to come to your company. Forward Deployed Engineers are payed by the other company to push you spending money at their company.