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
Forward Deployed Engineer New Grad: Internships, Skills & Application Tips
A tactical guide for new grads breaking into Forward Deployed Engineering. Covers internships, essential technical skills, resume tips, and the interview loop.
10 min read
Guides
Forward Deployed Engineer Salary Bangalore: Product vs Service Companies (2026)
Realistic FDE salary in Bangalore for freshers to seniors. Compare product vs service company pay, equity, and the skills that unlock ₹1 Cr+ packages in AI.
11 min read
Guides
Palantir FDE Work-Life Balance: Travel, On-Call & Burnout Reality
The unfiltered reality of Palantir FDE work-life balance: 50-80% travel, on-call pressure, and burnout risks weighed against mission-driven work and elite comp.
14 min read
Forward Deployed
The FDE Portfolio: What to Build to Get Hired (It's Not a To-Do App)
Stop building CRUD apps. A Forward Deployed Engineer portfolio proves you can decompose messy enterprise problems, ship high-stakes prototypes in days, and handle the full-stack chaos of AI integration. Here’s exactly what to build.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
FDE vs Solutions Engineer vs Sales Engineer: Scope, Comp, and Ownership Compared
A concrete engineer-to-engineer breakdown of Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Engineer, and Sales Engineer roles. Real scope differences, compensation bands, ownership models, and how to choose your path in enterprise AI.
12 min read
Forward Deployed
The FDE Portfolio: What to Build to Get Hired (It’s Not a To-Do App)
Forget CRUD apps. Forward Deployed Engineer hiring managers want proof you can ship into chaos. Build these 3 project archetypes to demonstrate the technical empathy and decomposition skills that land $180k+ offers.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
Case Study: Deploying a Sensitive LLM Feature at a Regulated Enterprise
How one FDE navigated SOC2, air-gapped VPCs, and the 'just use the API' fallacy to ship a document redaction agent. A tactical breakdown of architecture, compliance, and ai engineer job growth.
8 min read
Forward Deployed
The Highest-Leverage Skills for an FDE in the AI Era: Systems Thinking and Evaluation
Forward Deployed Engineers bridge code and chaos. In the AI era, coding speed is commoditized. The highest-leverage skills are ruthless Systems Thinking and rigorous LLM Evaluation. Here's how to master them.
8 min read
Forward Deployed
Case Study: Deploying a Sensitive LLM Feature at a Regulated Bank
A tactical walkthrough of deploying an LLM feature inside a top-5 US bank. We cover air-gapped architecture, PII redaction pipelines, hallucination guardrails, and the FDE career capital earned by shipping where compliance said no.
8 min read
Forward Deployed
On-Site vs Remote FDE: Travel Realities and the Hybrid Embed Model
Forward Deployed Engineers don't just code—they embed. This engineer-to-engineer guide breaks down the travel grind, salary deltas, and the hybrid embed model that defines on-site vs remote FDE work.
8 min read
Forward Deployed
What a Forward Deployed Engineer Actually Does in a Week at an AI Startup
A concrete, no-BS breakdown of an FDE's weekly workflow: from customer trauma to shipped code, the decisions, tools, and comp realities of the hottest AI role.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
The FDE Interview Loop: Tactical Prep for Decomposition and Debugging Rounds
Master the two hardest FDE interview rounds. Learn tactical frameworks for system decomposition, live debugging under pressure, and the specific signals top AI startups hunt for in 2026.
9 min read
AI News
Linux 0.11 in Idiomatic Rust: Booting a Memory-Safe Kernel
A developer rewrote Linux 0.11 in idiomatic Rust, booting it in QEMU. We dissect the architecture, why memory safety in kernel space matters for FDEs, and how to run it today.
8 min read
AI News
George Hotz on LLMs: Loving the Tool, Hating the Hype—An Engineer's Reality Check
George Hotz just dropped a raw, engineer's take on LLMs: love the utility, hate the hype. We break down his post, why it matters for FDEs, and how to build useful things without drinking the AGI Kool-Aid.
9 min read
AI News
Cursor 0-Day: Why Full Disclosure Became the Only Defense for Dev Tools
A critical Cursor IDE vulnerability exposed how agentic tools can be hijacked. We break down the attack, why it matters for forward-deployed engineers, and how to harden your local dev environment today.
9 min read
AI News
Coding Agents That Plan Ahead: What Anticipatory Reasoning Means for Engineers
New research shows LLM coding agents don't just react—they plan ahead. We break down the paper's findings on anticipatory reasoning, why it matters for building reliable agentic systems, and how to try it today.
11 min read
AI News
OpenAI Codex Encrypts Sub-Agent Prompts: A Hard Look at Agent Security
Codex now encrypts sub-agent prompts, closing a critical side-channel. Here's why it matters for agentic architectures, how to test it, and the real-world implications for FDEs building secure systems.
9 min read
Build Guides
Build a PDF Invoice Extractor That Outputs Structured JSON with Gemini Flash Free Tier
Build a Python pipeline that ingests messy PDF invoices and receipts, extracts text with PyPDF2, and structures it into clean JSON using Google Gemini Flash's free tier. No paid APIs required.
12 min read
Build Guides
Build a SQL Analyst Agent with LlamaIndex and Groq’s Free Tier
Ship a text-to-SQL agent that translates plain English into Postgres queries using LlamaIndex and Groq's free Llama 3 70B. Step-by-step code, zero-cost infra, and production tips.
9 min read
Build Guides
Build a Voice Assistant for Your Terminal with Local Whisper, Ollama, and Piper TTS
Wire up a fully local, zero-cost voice assistant in your terminal. We'll chain Whisper STT, Ollama (Llama 3), and Piper TTS with Python to build a talking CLI.
11 min read
Build Guides
Build a Cold Email Personalizer with Groq's Free LLM and Python
Build a script that reads a prospect CSV, scrapes their LinkedIn or website with Firecrawl's free tier, and generates hyper-personalized cold email opening lines using Groq's free Llama 3 70B API.
11 min read
Guides
Forward Deployed Engineer AI: How the Role Is Evolving in the LLM Era
Explore how the Forward Deployed Engineer role is transforming with AI and LLMs. Learn the new technical stack, core AI skills, and compensation bands for FDEs in 2025.
10 min read
Guides
AI Engineer Salary in Canada: City-Wise Breakdown & Growth Potential 2025
Data-driven AI engineer salary guide for Canada in 2025. City-wise breakdowns for Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, plus hourly rates, equity, and remote pay strategies.
12 min read
Guides
Palantir FDE vs FDSE: Role, Skills, Salary & Career Path Compared
Palantir FDE vs FDSE: a data-driven breakdown of responsibilities, technical depth, compensation, and career trajectories for forward deployed engineering roles.
8 min read
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