Igalia, a worker-owned open-source consulting firm, celebrates 25 years of contributing to upstream FOSS projects including WebKit, the Linux kernel, GStreamer, and various graphics drivers. The company's model ensures that client-funded work benefits the broader open-source community by integrating improvements directly into projects rather than maintaining proprietary patches.
Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) are technical staff embedded with high-ticket B2B customers to solve integration problems, provide support, and gather product insights. Unlike traditional consultants, FDEs have organizational accountability and bring learnings back to improve the product itself. The author, founder of Tinybird, argues FDEs are essential for B2B companies selling to large enterprises.