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
How to Become an AI Engineer in India: Skills, Courses & Career Path (2025)
A practical, no-fluff guide on how to become an AI engineer in India. Covers skills, costs, salaries, degree vs. non-degree paths, and project-based learning.
8 min read
Guides
Palantir FDE Salary & LeetCode Prep: What to Expect in 2025
Breakdown of Palantir FDE salary bands ($185K-$400K+), the exact LeetCode difficulty to expect, and why the Forward Deployed interview is a different beast from standard SDE loops.
9 min read
Guides
FDE Technical Interview: Key Question Types & How to Prepare
Master the FDE technical interview with a breakdown of coding, system design, API integration, and debugging rounds. Learn what top-tier firms actually test and how to prepare without wasting time.
10 min read
Forward Deployed
What a Forward Deployed Engineer Actually Does in a Week: A Time Audit
A real-world breakdown of the FDE weekly cycle: 30% code, 40% customer context, and 30% unblocking. Ditch the abstract role definitions—here's the concrete time audit.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
Deploying an LLM Feature at a Regulated Enterprise in 5 Days
A concrete case study on shipping a private LLM feature inside a Fortune 500 bank. Covers on-premise architecture, red-teaming, compliance, and the FDE comp context.
7 min read
Forward Deployed
Debugging in the Customer’s Environment When You Have Zero Direct Access
A forward deployed engineer's playbook for diagnosing production issues without SSH, VPN, or logs. Concrete techniques, proxy tools, and escalation frameworks for zero-access environments.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
Metrics an FDE Owns: Time-to-Value, Adoption, and Expansion Revenue
Forward Deployed Engineers don't just ship code—they ship business outcomes. Here's exactly how to measure and maximize Time-to-Value, Adoption, and Expansion Revenue to justify your forward deployed engineer salary and move the needle on the deals that matter.
8 min read
Forward Deployed
From Messy Customer Problem to Shipped Prototype in One Week: An FDE Playbook
A concrete, week-long playbook for Forward Deployed Engineers. Learn the high-signal skills required to triage messy enterprise problems, build trust, scope an MVP, and ship a working prototype that unblocks six-figure deals.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
How Palantir-Style FDEs Embed with Customers to Unblock Deployments and Drive Adoption
A concrete playbook on how Forward Deployed Engineers embed inside customer teams, debug production blockages, ship custom integrations, and turn stuck pilots into expansion revenue—no theory, just the real workflow.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
How AI-Native Startups Use FDEs to Win Complex Enterprise Deals and Reduce Churn
Forward Deployed Engineers are the secret weapon for AI startups landing six-figure enterprise contracts. This case study breaks down how FDEs bridge the gap between frontier models and Fortune 500 security checklists, turning technical churn into expansion revenue.
9 min read
AI News
Nativ: Run Frontier Open Models Locally on Your Mac Without the Ops Overhead
Nativ bundles a local API server, chat UI, and model downloader into a single native macOS app. Engineers and FDEs can now run Llama 3, Mistral, and other frontier open models locally with zero YAML wrangling.
11 min read
AI News
Measuring AI Writing on arXiv: Where Detection Breaks Down
A deep dive into measuring LLM-generated text on arXiv using statistical proxies like 'marker words.' We unpack the methodology, the engineering pitfalls of false positives, and why rigid detectors fail against evolving models.
8 min read
AI News
OpenAI Codex Context Window Shrinks 100k Tokens: What the PR Reveals
OpenAI quietly reduced the Codex model's context window from 372k to 272k tokens. We dissect the pull request, explain why this matters for engineering workloads, and how to adapt your agents.
8 min read
AI News
GPT-5.6 Found a $500k WordPress RCE: How AI is Reshaping Vulnerability Research
A security researcher used GPT-5.6 and $25 in API credits to find a WordPress RCE worth $500k on exploit markets. Here's what happened, why it changes the game for engineers, and how to start.
8 min read
AI News
Agent Swarms and the New Model Economics: Why Routing to Smaller Models Wins
The economics of AI are inverting. Agent swarms prove that a router directing tasks to specialized, smaller models often beats a single giant LLM on cost, latency, and accuracy.
8 min read
Build Guides
Build a Discord FAQ Bot with Supabase pgvector + Cloudflare Workers AI
Deploy a free, serverless Discord bot that answers community questions using RAG over your docs. Uses Discord.js, Supabase pgvector, and Cloudflare Workers AI.
10 min read
Build Guides
Build a Lead-Enrichment Agent That Researches Companies Using Serper and Gemini
Build a zero-cost lead-enrichment pipeline that takes a CSV of domains, scrapes live company data, and uses Gemini to generate detailed prospect profiles. Free-tier tools only.
9 min read
Guides
Software Engineer vs Forward Deployed Engineer: Role Scope & Day-to-Day
Compare SWE vs FDE roles: core responsibilities, day-to-day workflows, skills, and career trajectories. Learn which path fits you without the buzzwords.
9 min read
Guides
Forward Deployed Engineer Future: AI Era Career Outlook & Evolution
How the Forward Deployed Engineer role is evolving in the AI era: salary data, demand signals, the shift from plumbing to prompting, and a 2025-2030 career roadmap.
11 min read
Guides
Field Engineer vs Forward Deployed Engineer: Key Differences Explained
Field Engineer vs Forward Deployed Engineer: a detailed, no-fluff comparison of roles, salaries, technical depth, and career paths. Learn which engineering archetype fits you.
10 min read
Guides
AI Engineer Job Eligibility: Skills, Education & Experience Requirements
Cut through the noise: a practical engineer-to-engineer breakdown of AI engineer eligibility, covering degrees, must-have skills, portfolio projects, and the non-traditional paths that actually work.
9 min read
Guides
Forward Deployed Engineer vs AI Engineer: Scope, Skills & Daily Work
Forward Deployed Engineer vs AI Engineer: compare scope, skills, daily workflows, and salary. Learn which role builds production AI and which deploys it in the trenches.
9 min read
Guides
Forward Deployed Engineer Online Course: Core Competencies & Training
Master the FDE skillset with a forward deployed engineer online course. Learn systems integration, prototyping, and stakeholder communication to bridge sales and engineering.
8 min read
Guides
Google FDE Interview Questions: Technical & Consulting Rounds Explained
Master the Google FDE interview with a breakdown of technical, consulting, and system design rounds. Real questions, prep strategies, and the FDE mindset.
9 min read
1,162 articles and counting