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Learn · specialisations

Pick the job, then the path.

The FDE path teaches the job every forward deployed engineer does. Each of the 9 specialisations adds a few lessons, the practice and the interview drills that one kind of role asks for, from government to data platforms. Pick one when you know where you’re aiming; you can change it any time.

Shares of US FDE postings · Plank FDE job-market census (opens in a new tab) · observed 12 Sep 2026 · CC BY 4.0 (opens in a new tab), shares computed by us

  • Data & AI platform

    21.3%of US FDE postings

    FDE roles at data and AI platform companies: retrieval, text-to-SQL, fine-tuning and evaluation on the customer's lakehouse.

    4 lessons · 7.1 h beyond the path

    See the specialisation : Data & AI platform

  • Decision platforms

    6.2%of US FDE postings

    Ontology-led roles: model the customer's operation, then build the applications operators decide in.

    3 lessons · 3.6 h beyond the path

    See the specialisation : Decision platforms

  • Government

    11.5%of US FDE postings

    Public-sector delivery: accreditation, accessibility as law, records, procurement and decisions that stay human.

    4 lessons · 6.9 h beyond the path

    See the specialisation : Government

  • Healthcare

    5.5%of US FDE postings

    Payer and provider work: FHIR, prior authorisation, PHI and consequential decisions with an audit trail.

    3 lessons · 5.5 h beyond the path

    See the specialisation : Healthcare

  • Legal

    0.6%of US FDE postings

    Legal workflows: playbook review, clause extraction and citations a lawyer can check.

    3 lessons · 1.8 h beyond the path

    See the specialisation : Legal

  • Customer experience & voice

    3.9%of US FDE postings

    Voice and support agents: latency, telephony, consent, disclosure and the handoff to a person.

    3 lessons · 5.3 h beyond the path

    See the specialisation : Customer experience & voice

  • Financial services

    4.4%of US FDE postings

    Banks and fintechs: model risk review, fair lending, governance and evidence for auditors.

    3 lessons · 4.9 h beyond the path

    See the specialisation : Financial services

  • Logistics & industrial

    5.0%of US FDE postings

    Operations at scale: forecasts, schedules, systems with no API, and rolling out site by site.

    3 lessons · 1.6 h beyond the path

    See the specialisation : Logistics & industrial

  • AI coding & modernisation

    2.5%of US FDE postings

    Coding agents in the customer's own codebase, from characterisation tests to a safe migration.

    3 lessons · 5.3 h beyond the path

    See the specialisation : AI coding & modernisation

A posting can count in more than one family. Which family a posting belongs to is our own classification, not the census’s. No company named here endorses or is affiliated with this course.