What is a forward deployed engineer?
A production software engineer who works inside your operation, not at the vendor's office. They sit beside the person doing the job, then build and ship real software against what they saw. The role started at Palantir, where they were called Deltas.
How is this different from a consultant?
A consultant delivers a recommendation. We deliver running software. Nothing in our closing report is a claim that is not already live in your business.
How long until we see something working?
Ten working days to a costed automation map and a go / no-go decision. Around thirty days to the first workflow live in production. Ninety days for a full Deploy 90 including handover. Multi-site or regulated programmes run six to twelve months.
Why not just hire our own?
Sometimes you should, and we will say so. But for a bounded project: twelve months of salary plus 13-16% statutory on-cost, bonus, recruitment and equipment - to get maybe three months of engineering. Two to three months to hire, another quarter to ramp, one skill set, and the risk stays yours. Hire for permanent year-round ownership. Deploy us for a defined transformation.
Are you here to replace our staff?
No, and we decline engagements framed that way. You name the protected roles before day one. What disappears is re-typing, chasing and reconciling; headcount usually absorbs more volume instead. It is practical as much as ethical - automation people resent does not survive the first month after we leave.
What does "fixed price" actually commit you to?
Scope, acceptance criteria, price and end date in writing before work starts. New scope needs a written variation. If the build runs long, that is our cost. And there is a contractual end date with a handover pack due on it.
Do we have to pay it all up front?
No. Deploy 90 is invoiced 20/30/30/20: RM 19,200 on signing, RM 28,800 at first workflow live, RM 28,800 at acceptance testing, RM 19,200 on handover after a 14-day parallel run. Three of four tranches release only after you confirm the work is done.
What if it is not working by day 30?
You can cancel. If the first workflow is not live and in use on day thirty, you pay only what was invoiced and keep everything built - the map, the model, the code. We already promise day-30 live; this makes it enforceable.
What if something breaks after you leave?
Defects in what we built are fixed free for ninety days: next-business-day response, three-business-day fix on anything blocking a billing or month-end run. Nothing runs on our licence key or our cloud, so nobody can switch it off.
Who owns the code?
The data was always yours. On code, the honest split: work written for you is assigned outright at handover, with credentials and runbooks. The pre-existing modules we reuse come under a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free licence - they are already licensed to other clients and cannot be assigned twice. Same practical freedom: your servers, no per-seat licence, nothing stops if you stop paying us.
Can we speak to an existing client first?
Yes. At shortlist stage we arrange a call with clients in your sector, under NDA, and we are not on the call. We do not publish client names or their figures here because that information is theirs.
Our data cannot leave the building. Problem?
That is our normal case. Private on-premise and air-gapped AI is VYROX's main engineering line, so the model runs on hardware you own. Standard for clinics, law firms, accounting practices and government - and it removes the biggest PDPA exposure in most AI projects.
Should we buy off-the-shelf instead?
Sometimes, and we will say so during Recon - in which case RM 12,000 saved you RM 96,000. Packages handle standard needs. They do not handle the seams between systems you already own: the bank statement into the ledger, the payment matched to an invoice, the approval chased. That gap is specific to you, and it is where the hours go.
How do we know the savings are real?
Every workflow is timed before we touch it and again after go-live, the same way. The "before" figure is agreed with you in writing during Recon so nobody can move the goalposts. Where a workflow cannot be measured honestly, we say so.