Your AI roadmap is ready. Your team isn't.
75-day hiring cycles. 38% AI talent gap. Meanwhile, the mandate from leadership is clear: ship AI features this quarter. Here's how engineering leaders are solving this without hiring.
AI transformation mandate, zero AI bench.
Global HQ wants AI features this year. Your Bangalore team has strong platform engineers but nobody who's built a RAG pipeline or deployed an LLM agent in production. Hiring takes 75+ days. Contractors from staffing agencies need months of ramp-up.
The numbers you're dealing with:
Source: Quess Corp Q4 FY26 report, TeamLease Digital FY25 data
What Is a Forward Deployed Engineer? The 2026 Guide
From the company that deploys them. What FDEs do, how they differ from staff aug, what they cost in India, and when they make sense.
How We Evaluate AI Agencies: A Founder's Checklist
The technical and operational checks we'd apply to any AI partner, including ourselves.
Maersk deploys our FDEs. If you're an engineering director at a GCC and need AI engineers faster than your hiring pipeline can deliver, we can have someone in your codebase in under two weeks.
Talk to us on WhatsApp →Ship AI features without bloating your headcount.
You're Series A-C. You need AI capabilities but can't justify hiring 2-3 AI engineers full-time for a feature set that's still being validated. An FDE gives you AI engineering capacity without the long-term commitment.
Hire AI Engineers vs an AI Agency: The Real Math for Series A
When hiring makes sense, when an agency does, and when an FDE at INR 45K/month is the rational choice.
The Real Cost of Building an AI Product in 2026
Engineering hours, model costs, infrastructure. Line-by-line for a typical AI feature build.
Build vs Buy AI: The Decision for Seed-Stage Founders
When to use an API as-is, when to wrap it, and when to deploy an engineer to build something custom.
TradeLab and Eternz deploy our FDEs. If you're a funded startup CTO and need AI engineering capacity without the hiring cycle, we can match an engineer to your stack in under two weeks.
Talk to us on WhatsApp →Proof, not promises.
Every project below was built by Kalvium Labs engineers. These are the same engineers we deploy as FDEs.
Browse all case studies →
11 projects across fintech, EdTech, healthcare content, enterprise compliance, and more.
AI Trading Analytics
Agentic analytics with Claude SDK + MCP.
Assessment Platform
1.5L users, 150K concurrent at peak.
Sales Call Compliance AI
40% compliance lift, 95% QA cost down.
Meeting Intelligence
4-hour recordings to 1-page briefs.
Stop hiring. Start deploying.
Tell us what you need. We'll match an AI-native engineer to your team in under two weeks. Starting at INR 45,000/month.
Talk to Us on WhatsAppUsually reply within a few hours.