The FDE Coach blog · new articles every day
Practical guides for engineers who ship AI.
Step-by-step builds with free AI tools, what just shipped in AI and why it matters, and Forward Deployed Engineer playbooks on interviews, pay and client work.
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Guides
BCG Forward Deployed Engineer: Consulting Meets Technical Deployment
Deep-dive into the BCG Forward Deployed Engineer role. Understand the hybrid DNA, salary expectations, interview process, and how building AI agents prepares you for elite consulting deployment.
8 min read
Forward Deployed
Writing Customer-Facing Technical Docs That Actually Get Read by Enterprise Users
Stop shipping docs that engineering loves and customers ignore. Learn the enterprise FDE playbook for writing technical documentation that busy stakeholders actually read, trust, and act on.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
The Highest-Leverage Skills for a Forward Deployed Engineer in the AI Era
AI didn't kill the FDE role—it weaponized it. Master the 5 highest-leverage skills that separate operators from spectators: prompt engineering as system design, building retrieval-augmented evaluation pipelines, and the art of enterprise-grade prototype-to-production handoffs.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
Building Trust with Non-Technical Stakeholders as an FDE: The Trust Battery
Concrete tactics for FDEs to translate technical complexity into business trust. Learn to manage the 'Trust Battery,' run high-signal demos, and turn ambiguous requirements into revenue-retaining partnerships.
7 min read
Forward Deployed
The FDE Portfolio: What to Build to Get Hired at Top AI and Enterprise Companies
Stop building toy apps. Reverse-engineer the FDE portfolio that gets offers from Palantir, Scale AI, and top startups. Real project specs, technical decisions, and the signals hiring managers actually read.
11 min read
Forward Deployed
The FDE Interview Loop: Deployment Scenarios, Systems Design & Customer Empathy Prep
Master the Forward Deployed Engineer interview with concrete prep for deployment scenarios, systems design, and customer empathy. Real workflows, comp data, and no fluff.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
On-Site vs Remote FDE Work: Travel Realities, Burnout, and Making It Sustainable
A field manual for Forward Deployed Engineers navigating the on-site vs remote decision. Concrete travel schedules, compensation data, burnout prevention tactics, and a sustainability framework for high-trust technical roles.
12 min read
Forward Deployed
How FDEs Work with Product and Engineering After the Enterprise Sale
A concrete playbook for Forward Deployed Engineers navigating the post-sale enterprise landscape: bridging gap analysis, roadmap influence, and production hand-offs without burning the team.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
How Palantir-Style FDEs Embed with Customers to Unlock Technical Value
A concrete playbook on the Palantir Forward Deployed Engineer model: how FDEs embed on-site, navigate messy data, build trust, and ship value in weeks—not quarters. Includes real workflows, comp context, and a maturity model for scaling beyond the hero engineer.
10 min read
Forward Deployed
Scaling Yourself: When an FDE Hands Off to Core Engineering for Productionization
The handoff from Forward Deployed Engineer to core engineering is where prototypes die or scale. Learn the concrete artifacts, architecture decisions, and comp frameworks that make productionization a clean kill, not a boomerang.
10 min read
AI News
Warp Agent CLI: The Native Terminal Coding Agent Engineers Need
Warp drops a coding agent directly into your terminal, not a separate IDE pane. Here's how the Warp Agent CLI works, why it matters for engineers and FDEs, and how to try it today.
12 min read
AI News
Cloudflare OS: The Open Edge Platform for Agents & Apps
Cloudflare OS isn't a new operating system—it's a rebundling of their edge primitives (Workers, Durable Objects, AI) into an open platform for building autonomous agents and distributed applications. Here's what changed, why it matters for engineers, and how to use it today.
12 min read
AI News
Beating GPT-4o on Retrieval with a 100x Cheaper Open Stack
Neon’s Castform stack uses open-source models to beat GPT-4o on document retrieval while being 100x cheaper. Here’s the engineering breakdown and how to build it yourself.
10 min read
AI News
Rust’s Formal LLM Policy: What It Means for Working Engineers
The Rust project just adopted a formal LLM policy. We break down the rules, the rationale, and what this signals for engineers building with AI—plus how to apply similar guardrails in your own stack.
9 min read
AI News
TIME Serves AI Bots an Ad-Loaded Site: The Engineering Playbook
TIME.com is now serving a separate, ad-injected version of its content to AI crawlers. We break down the mechanics, why it matters for the data supply chain, and how engineers can replicate or defend against this tactic.
11 min read
Build Guides
Build a Lead-Enrichment Agent with Playwright and Gemini (Free Tier)
Scrape company websites and extract structured data using Playwright and Google Gemini's free tier. Build a Python agent that turns domain lists into enriched lead CSVs.
9 min read
Build Guides
Build a Local RAG Chatbot Over Your PDFs with Ollama, LlamaIndex, and Qdrant Free Tier
Build a fully local RAG pipeline that ingests your PDF library and answers questions using Ollama for private LLM inference and Qdrant's free cloud vector store. Complete engineering guide with code.
10 min read
Build Guides
Build a Smart Clipboard That Translates & Summarizes with Groq + Piper TTS
Build a free system tray app that watches your clipboard, summarizes or translates text using Groq's blazing-fast Llama inference, and reads it aloud with open-source Piper TTS. Full Python guide.
9 min read
Guides
Forward Deployed Engineer Salary Europe: 2026 Compensation Benchmarks by Country
Real forward deployed engineer salary data for Europe in 2026. Benchmarks for UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, and Nordics. See base, equity, and total comp ranges.
9 min read
Guides
Apply for AI Engineer Jobs: The 2025 Blueprint to Stand Out & Get Hired
Learn how to apply for AI engineer jobs strategically in 2025. Master the resume, portfolio projects, system design, and interview tactics that bypass HR filters.
8 min read
Guides
AI Engineer IT Career Switch: Sysadmin or Dev to AI in 2025
A practical, no-fluff guide for sysadmins and developers transitioning to AI engineering. Covers skill gap analysis, learning roadmaps, and salary data.
10 min read
Guides
AI Engineer Early Career: How to Break In and Build Your First AI Portfolio
Land your first AI engineer role without a PhD. A no-fluff guide to skills, portfolio projects, and job search strategy for breaking into AI engineering in 2025.
10 min read
Guides
Training for Forward Deployed Engineer: The Technical & Consulting Skill Path
A practical, no-BS guide to training for a forward deployed engineer role. Covers the technical stack, consulting soft skills, deployment tactics, and a 90-day roadmap to mastering the FDE craft.
10 min read
Guides
Forward Deployed Engineer and AI: How FDEs Deploy LLM Features
Forward deployed engineers bridge the gap between shipped AI models and real-world value. Learn how FDEs deploy LLM features, handle enterprise constraints, and architect reliable AI systems.
11 min read
1,162 articles and counting