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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Forward Deployed
How Palantir-Style FDEs Embed With Customers: Ontology, Ownership, and Operational Friction
A concrete playbook on how Palantir-style Forward Deployed Engineers embed with customers: the ontology-first approach, taking ownership of operational friction, and the real workflows that turn messy enterprise problems into shipped software.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
FDE Compensation Bands and How to Negotiate: Base, Equity, and the Risk Premium
Forward Deployed Engineer comp isn't standard SWE pay. Learn real FDE compensation bands, the risk premium for travel and on-call, and negotiation tactics for base, equity, and signing.
8 min read
Forward Deployed
Metrics an FDE Actually Owns: Time-to-Value, Feature Adoption, and Account Expansion
Forward Deployed Engineers don't own uptime or velocity. They own business outcomes. A deep dive into the 3 metrics that define an FDE's performance, with real scenarios, comp context, and tactical frameworks for measuring what matters.
11 min read
Forward Deployed
Debugging in the Customer's Environment Without Access: An FDE Playbook
Master the art of solving critical bugs in customer environments you can't touch. This guide covers proxy debugging, telemetry correlation, and building trust to ship fixes fast.
7 min read
Forward Deployed
From FDE to Founder: Why the Role Is the Best Startup Prep You Can Get
Forward Deployed Engineers don't just ship code—they find product-market fit under fire. Here's why the FDE skillset maps 1:1 to founding a company, from comp to cap tables.
8 min read
Forward Deployed
How FDEs Turn a Messy Customer Problem Into a Shipped Prototype in a Single Week
A concrete playbook for Forward Deployed Engineers on compressing ambiguity into a working prototype. Real workflow, decision frameworks, and the comp context behind shipping fast.
10 min read
Forward Deployed
Scaling Yourself: When and How an FDE Hands Off a Prototype to Core Engineering
A concrete playbook for Forward Deployed Engineers on timing the handoff, writing effective technical specs, and transitioning ownership without breaking the trust you built with the customer.
8 min read
AI News
MI355X vs B300 for MoE Inference: Kimi K3 Throughput per Dollar Deep Dive
AMD's MI355X runs Kimi K3 MoE inference at better performance per dollar than Nvidia's B300. We break down the benchmark, why memory bandwidth dominates cost, and what this means for engineers deploying large-scale models.
9 min read
AI News
Running Kimi K3 Locally: Memory Bandwidth and the True Cost of 0.5 tok/s
We ran Kimi K3 on consumer hardware using 29 GB of RAM. The 0.5 tok/s throughput isn't a software bug—it's a physics lesson in memory bandwidth. Here's what happened, why it matters, and how to try it.
9 min read
AI News
The Prototype-Product Gap: Why LLM Code Needs Systems Thinking to Ship
LLMs can generate a prototype in seconds, but that isn't a product. Explore the invisible systems work—state management, error handling, deployment—that separates a demo from shippable software.
9 min read
AI News
Constraint Injection: The Engineering Secret to Hallucination-Free Financial AI
MIT research confirms AI financial advice is surprisingly good when you ask the right questions. Here's the engineer's playbook for structuring prompts with constraint injection to extract useful, grounded LLM advice without hallucination.
11 min read
AI News
Debugging Concurrent LLM Agents: What qm Exposes About State and Race Conditions
Concurrent LLM agents break in ways sequential code never does. We dissect the qm harness to expose the state corruption, atomicity failures, and non-determinism that kill agent reliability.
9 min read
Build Guides
Build a YouTube-to-Blog Repurposing Agent with Whisper, Groq, and Cloudflare Workers
Build a free, automated pipeline that downloads YouTube audio, transcribes it with Whisper, and generates SEO-friendly blog posts using Groq's LLM—all deployed on serverless Cloudflare Workers.
10 min read
Build Guides
Build a Local Codebase Q&A Tool with Ollama, LlamaIndex, and Qdrant Free Tier
Index any local git repo into Qdrant's free cloud tier and query its architecture with a local Ollama model. A complete Python CLI build guide for engineers.
10 min read
Guides
Forward Deployed Engineer Roadmap: Skills, Projects & Career Pivot
A practical, no-fluff roadmap to become a Forward Deployed Engineer. Learn the technical skills, build the portfolio projects, and execute the career pivot into this high-impact, customer-facing engineering role.
12 min read
Guides
FDE vs Software Engineer Salary: 2025 Compensation, Equity & Risk Premium
Compare forward deployed engineer vs software engineer salary data for 2025. Real numbers on base, equity, and the FDE risk premium at Palantir, Google, and startups.
12 min read
Guides
OpenAI Forward Deployed Engineer Interview: Questions, Process & Prep Strategy
A no-fluff engineer's guide to the OpenAI FDE interview. Covers the coding, system design, and customer-centric rounds with example questions, prep tactics, and a detailed FAQ.
9 min read
Guides
Inside Palantir FDE Training: What to Expect and How to Prepare
A no-fluff breakdown of Palantir's Forward Deployed Engineer training: the technical stack, Foundry deep-dive, Delta simulations, and the mental models you need to survive.
7 min read
Guides
AI Engineer Job Titles Explained: Entry-Level to Staff (2026 Guide)
Decode the chaos of AI engineer job titles. From entry-level ML roles to Staff AI Engineer, learn the scope, salary, and skills for every tier in the modern stack.
9 min read
Guides
AI Engineer Career Path: Skills, Roles & Progression Roadmap (2026)
A no-fluff guide to the AI Engineer career path: from foundational Python and MLOps to specialized LLM architecture. Includes salary data, role comparisons, and a practical skills progression roadmap.
7 min read
Guides
AI Engineer Jobs for Freshers Remote: Your 2026 Playbook to Get Hired
Landing remote AI engineer jobs as a fresher is tough but not impossible. Learn the real salary data, required skills, portfolio projects, and where to apply to break in.
8 min read
Guides
Forward Deployed AI Engineer Salary in India: 2025 Compensation Guide
Real 2025 salary data for Forward Deployed AI Engineers in India: base pay, equity, and total comp breakdowns by experience, location, and company tier. No fluff.
10 min read
Guides
FDE Interview at OpenAI & AI Labs: The Complete Preparation Guide
Master the Forward Deployed Engineer interview at OpenAI and similar AI labs. Covers the coding, system design, and customer-facing rounds with real prep strategies.
10 min read
Forward Deployed
Deploying an LLM Feature at a Regulated Enterprise in 3 Weeks: FDE Case Study
A tactical walkthrough of shipping a private LLM summarization feature inside a bank's on-prem environment. Covers air-gapped deployment, compliance guardrails, and the FDE comp leverage gained.
7 min read
1,162 articles and counting