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.
Page 46 of 49
Guides
How to Land Forward Deployed Engineer Internships: A Student's Playbook
A tactical guide to landing forward deployed engineer internships. Learn the FDE skills stack, resume strategy, interview loops, and where to find these high-leverage roles in 2025.
8 min read
Guides
System Engineer vs Software Engineer: Which Career Path Wins in 2025?
A deep, data-driven comparison of system engineering and software engineering: daily work, required skills, salary bands, career trajectories, and how to choose without regret.
10 min read
Guides
Palantir Deployment Strategist vs FDE: Which Role Fits Your Skills?
Deployment Strategist or Forward Deployed Engineer? We break down the technical depth, client exposure, compensation, and career arcs to help you choose the right Palantir path.
11 min read
Guides
How to Choose an AI Engineer Bootcamp for Beginners: 9 Non‑Negotiables
A no‑BS guide for beginners evaluating AI engineer bootcamps. We break down curricula, cost, job outcomes, and the 9 signals that separate real training from hype.
10 min read
Guides
Forward Deployed Engineer Qualifications: Skills, Background & Portfolio for 2025
Master forward deployed engineer qualifications with this engineer-to-engineer guide covering technical skills, portfolio projects, and the background you need to break into the role.
9 min read
Guides
How to Land Remote AI Engineer Jobs in India: Skills & Application Tips
Master the skills, tools, and application strategy to land high-paying remote AI engineer jobs in India. Covers salaries, demand, and a practical roadmap.
11 min read
Guides
How to Become a Forward Deployed Engineer: The Complete Career Path
Master the FDE career path with this no-fluff guide. Learn the exact skills, projects, and interview prep to land a Forward Deployed Engineer role, based on real Reddit discussions and insider data.
11 min read
Forward Deployed
Scaling Yourself: When an FDE Hands Off to Core Engineering Without Dropping Context
A tactical playbook for Forward Deployed Engineers on executing zero-context-loss handoffs to core engineering. Covers artifact-driven specs, RFC rituals, and SLA design patterns.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
The Tools an FDE Ships With: Data, Integrations, and Demos That Close Deals
Forget generic SaaS stacks. A real FDE ships with Python, DuckDB, and a ruthless instinct for turning messy customer data into a demo that closes a 6-figure deal before lunch.
8 min read
Forward Deployed
Debugging in the Customer's Environment Without Their Access: An FDE Playbook
A tactical guide for Forward Deployed Engineers to debug production issues in air-gapped, customer-hosted environments without direct shell or database access. Covers telemetry proxies, session replay, and structured evidence collection.
7 min read
Forward Deployed
How Palantir-Style FDEs Embed with Customers: The Forward-Deployed Model Explained
A concrete engineer-to-engineer breakdown of how Palantir's forward-deployed model actually works. Real embedding mechanics, technical workflows, comp realities, and how to replicate the model in your own career.
10 min read
Forward Deployed
The FDE Interview Loop: Deconstructing the Gauntlet and How to Prepare
A concrete, engineer-to-engineer breakdown of the FDE interview loop. Learn the exact stages, technical deep-dives, and strategic prep for cracking Palantir, OpenAI, and Google-style forward deployed roles.
8 min read
Forward Deployed
How to Break Into FDE Roles from a Backend or Frontend Background
Transitioning from backend or frontend engineering into a Forward Deployed Engineer role requires retooling for high-ambiguity problem solving. This playbook covers the exact skill gaps, project archetypes, and negotiation levers for making the switch.
10 min read
Forward Deployed
FDE Compensation Bands in 2025: Benchmark and Negotiate Your Offer
Decode 2025 FDE compensation bands by stage and region. Learn to reverse-engineer the recruiter’s range, anchor high with a live data script, and negotiate equity without burning the bridge.
9 min read
Forward Deployed
The Highest-Leverage Skills for an FDE in the AI Era: Beyond Prompt Engineering
Prompt engineering is table stakes. The highest-leverage FDE skills in the AI era are system design for non-determinism, evaluation-driven development, and translating business entropy into deterministic contracts. Real workflows, comp context, and concrete decisions inside.
10 min read
AI News
Benchmarking 15 Old Tesla GPUs for Modern AI Inference and Training
We dissect a brutal benchmark of 15 legacy Tesla GPUs against modern AI workloads. Discover why a $40 K80 still surprises, how VRAM and memory bandwidth dominate token generation, and what this means for engineers building inference stacks on a budget.
11 min read
AI News
Causality for LLMs: What Mechanistic Interpretability Means for Engineers
Mechanistic interpretability researchers are injecting causality theory into LLMs to decode reasoning. Here's the engineer's take on activation patching, causal graphs, and why it matters for debugging AI features.
9 min read
AI News
Mindwalk: Replay Coding Agent Sessions on a 3D Codebase Map
Mindwalk turns coding-agent sessions into 3D replays on top of your codebase structure. Learn how this spatial debugger works, why it matters for FDEs, and how to use it today.
11 min read
AI News
Clawk: Sandboxing Coding Agents in Disposable Linux VMs for Safety
Giving an LLM shell access is a recipe for disaster. Clawk solves this by spinning up disposable Linux VMs for coding agents. Here's the engineering breakdown and how to use it today.
9 min read
AI News
Apple SpeechAnalyzer vs. Whisper: On-Device Accuracy Benchmarks for Engineers
Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API runs locally on Neural Engine. We break down the Whisper comparison benchmarks, analyze latency vs. accuracy trade-offs, and show engineers how to integrate it today.
9 min read
Build Guides
Build a Personal Finance Categorizer from Bank CSVs Using a Free Local LLM
Stop manually tagging transactions. Use Ollama, Python, and a local LLM to auto-categorize bank CSVs. A free, private, step-by-step engineering guide with real code.
10 min read
Build Guides
Build a WhatsApp Customer Support Agent Backed by Your Docs with n8n and Qdrant
Wire up a free AI agent that answers WhatsApp support queries using your own documentation. We use n8n for automation, Qdrant for vector search, and Groq's fast Llama inference—all on free tiers.
11 min read
Build Guides
Build a Screenshot-to-Code Agent Using Gemini Vision Free Tier & Playwright
Turn UI screenshots into clean HTML/CSS with a free CLI agent. We wire Playwright to Google Gemini Vision's free tier so you can go from pixel to code in seconds.
11 min read
Build Guides
Build a YouTube-to-Blog Repurposing Agent Using Whisper and Gemini Free Tier
Engineer a zero-cost content repurposing pipeline: download YouTube audio with yt-dlp, transcribe with OpenAI Whisper, and generate SEO-ready blog posts via Google Gemini's free tier. Full Python code included.
11 min read
1,162 articles and counting