Aaron Sempf

Aaron Sempf

Frontier AI @ AWS | Technoanthropologist | Architecting Adaptive, Distributed & Agentic Systems for Enterprise Evolution · 2w ago

AWS invested $1B in Forward Deployed Engineering. The Partner-Led FDE Motion extended that to partners. The question nobody answered: what methodology do these teams actually follow? Erik Farr and I wrote two articles that answer this. Both describe how the AI-Accelerated Modernization Framework works as the production-grade delivery methodology for FDE modernization engagements. The short version: most modernization programs skip structured investigation. They look at the code, pick a tool, and start executing. The problems arrive during execution, when the cost of change is high. Investigation converts unknown unknowns into known risks before a single architectural decision is made. The accelerator is not the AI. The accelerator is the design of the AI agents. #ForwardDeployedEngineering #FDE #AWS #Modernization #AI #AgenticAI

Aaron Sempf

Frontier AI @ AWS | Technoanthropologist | Architecting Adaptive, Distributed & Agentic Systems for Enterprise Evolution · 7w ago

Most modernization programs don't fail because the AI wasn't good enough. They fail because nobody designed the investigation before the execution started. AWS has put $1B into Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE), and extended it to partners through the Partner-Led FDE Motion. The mandate is simple; Embed with the customer, ship production systems in weeks, leave them self-sufficient. The hard part isn't the AI. It's building a methodology that compounds instead of restarting from zero on every engagement. Erik Farr and I wrote up how the AI-Accelerated Modernization Framework does that. Five phases, explicit gates, and a delivery harness partners keep permanently (methodology, system-type library, per-engagement configuration). The accelerator was never the AI. It's the design of the agents. Read the full piece with Erik: https://lnkd.in/gnWZba4j