I've been a Forward Deployed Engineer practically speaking, and properly construed the title correlates well with the personal sobriquet "hacker tourist". I've been to Prudhoe Bay, places I won't name here; factories; other things which were basically factories but maybe you wouldn't realize this from the outside. I've done some odd remote contracts, such as hunting medical devices on hospital networks (they're like SCADA, but without the Purdue Model).

I've bridged between the customer's technical team and the vendor / provider's technical staff... when there was vendor technical staff. Other times it's been more like a treasure hunt or something (sometimes there are real bad guys) and I've been there to bridge a gap between broader industry knowledge and the onsite technical team.

I'm getting pings from recruiters based in the Bay Area about "forward deployed engineers" in SF metro. It's not one of the labs, there are no mech or electrical engineers, nothing is going to escape, catch fire, or explode, nor is the inventory heavily guarded. It is bullshit; a con, so you won't notice you're being asked to establish nexus in CA.

I'm tired of flying (although if you need me to literally parachute or rappel in, I'm getting a little old but we can talk), but I'm happy to drive anywhere in the greater Pac NW (no more than two days out from Puget Sound metro).