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
Case Study: Deploying a Risky LLM Feature at a Regulated Enterprise in 3 Weeks
A real playbook for deploying an LLM feature into a locked-down F500 bank. We cover the 3-week timeline, the PII redaction architecture, the compliance theater, and the $280k FDE comp context behind the decision to ship.
8 min read
Forward Deployed
A Forward Deployed Engineer's Week: Diving Deep on a Single Customer Problem
A concrete, day-by-day playbook of what a Forward Deployed Engineer actually does in a week. Real scenarios, tools, decisions, and comp context. No hype.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
What a Forward Deployed Engineer Actually Does in a Week: A Time Audit
A raw, engineer-to-engineer breakdown of the FDE week: from high-stakes customer debugging and rapid prototyping to internal tooling. No fluff, just real scenarios, tools, and comp context.
8 min read
Forward Deployed
From Messy Problem to Shipped Prototype in a Week: The FDE Customer Playbook
A concrete playbook for Forward Deployed Engineers on how to parse ambiguous customer pain, scope ruthlessly, and ship a working prototype in five days. Real scenarios, tools, and comp context included.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
FDE Compensation Bands and How to Negotiate Your Offer in 2026
Concrete 2026 FDE compensation data and negotiation frameworks. Learn to decode equity, benchmark total comp, and run the offer process like a technical sales cycle.
12 min read
Forward Deployed
Debugging in the Customer's Environment Without Their Access: An FDE Playbook
A concrete playbook for Forward Deployed Engineers debugging customer issues when you can't touch their stack. Real scenarios, tooling decisions, and comp context.
8 min read
AI News
Claude Fable Generated a Counterexample to the Jacobian Conjecture: What It Means for Engineers
Claude Fable produced a counterexample to the Jacobian Conjecture—a 85-year-old math problem. We unpack the event, why it matters for FDEs building with LLMs, and how to harness reasoning models for hard technical work.
10 min read
AI News
OpenAI Presence: The Desktop Operator That FDEs Can Actually Use Today
OpenAI Presence isn't just a demo—it's an operator that takes over your desktop. Here's how it works, why it matters for Forward Deployed Engineers, and how to build your own today.
10 min read
AI News
The Reasoning Effort Knob: Trading LLM Cost for Accuracy
New research shows you can dial reasoning effort up or down in LLMs without retraining. Learn how this inference-time control works, why it matters for cost-sensitive pipelines, and how to implement it today.
10 min read
AI News
GigaToken: How a Custom Rust Tokenizer Achieves 1000x Speedup Over HF Tokenizers
A custom Rust tokenizer claims a 1000x throughput leap over Hugging Face tokenizers. We dig into the architecture, the memory tricks that make it fly, and what it means for your inference pipeline.
10 min read
AI News
Gemini 3.6 Flash Kills Sampling Knobs: What It Means for Your Pipelines
Google's Gemini 3.6 Flash ignores temperature, top_p, and top_k. Here's the engineering impact on determinism, caching, and pipeline design—and how to adapt today.
11 min read
Build Guides
Build a Personal Meeting Notetaker That Transcribes and Summarizes Calls
Build a local tool that records system audio, transcribes with OpenAI Whisper, and uses Groq's LLM to output structured summaries with action items—all free.
10 min read
Build Guides
Build a Local Codebase Q&A Tool with Ollama, LlamaIndex & ChromaDB
Index any local repo and ask architecture or debugging questions using a fully local, free LLM stack. A step-by-step guide with Python code, pitfalls, and extensions.
9 min read
Guides
Palantir FDSE Starting Salary: 2025 Compensation Breakdown
A detailed, data-driven breakdown of the Palantir FDSE starting salary for 2025. Analyze base pay, equity, signing bonuses, and relocation to understand total compensation.
10 min read
Guides
Forward Deployed Engineer Salary in Germany: 2026 Earning Guide
Real data on forward deployed engineer salary in Germany: base pay, equity, and total comp by city and experience. See how FDE roles compare to pure SWE and AI roles.
8 min read
Guides
AI Engineer Career Outlook 2025: Skills, Demand & Growth Paths
Explore the 2025 AI engineer career outlook: salaries hitting $900K, in-demand skills, job survival analysis, and the concrete path from junior to architect.
10 min read
Guides
Palantir Forward Deployed Engineer Job Description & Core Responsibilities
A no-fluff breakdown of the Palantir FDSE job description: technical requirements, mission responsibilities, compensation, and why it's the ultimate startup prep.
9 min read
Guides
Solution Engineer vs Software Developer: Which Tech Career Fits You?
Compare solution engineer vs software developer roles: salary, skills, coding depth, and career path. Find the best fit for your technical and people skills.
10 min read
Guides
Forward Deployed Engineer vs Solutions Architect: Scope, Skills, and Career Paths
Forward Deployed Engineer vs Solutions Architect: a deep dive into scope, technical depth, compensation, and which role fits your engineering career. No fluff, just data.
8 min read
Guides
What Is Palantir's FDE Model? The Blueprint for Enterprise AI Adoption
Palantir's Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) model embeds engineers directly with clients to solve high-stakes problems, driving AI adoption. Learn how it works and why it's the future of enterprise tech.
9 min read
Guides
Forward Deployed Engineer Career Path: From FDE to Leadership
Map the forward deployed engineer career path from entry-level to executive. Learn salary bands, required skills, and how to navigate the unique tension between engineering depth and customer obsession.
9 min read
Guides
Forward Deployed Engineer Roles in India: 2025 Opportunities & How to Apply
Explore forward deployed engineer roles in India: salary benchmarks, top hiring companies, required skills, and a step-by-step guide to landing FDE jobs in 2025.
8 min read
Forward Deployed
FDE Compensation Bands and How to Negotiate Your Offer in 2026
Real FDE compensation bands from pre-seed to FAANG, a tactical negotiation playbook for forward deployed engineers, and scripts to secure a 30%+ increase without burning the offer.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
The Tools an FDE Ships With: Data, Integrations, and Demos
A concrete playbook on the tools a Forward Deployed Engineer actually ships with in 2026. From scripting data pipelines to building customer demos, here is the real stack.
7 min read
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