Forward Deployed Engineering 101
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> why AI companies are in desperate need of them [FDEs]
> the only competitive edge is how and where you use it [intelligence]
> determining how and where companies use it [intelligence] becomes the most important role
> that is the role of a forward deployed engineer
> Businesses hire an Applied AI company...to help them get the most out of the technology.
> gives them access to a team that has already done large-scale AI transformations...make clients move much faster than their competitors
> FDE is a highly skilled engineer who can understand the customer's problems very deeply, write code into a code base they've potentially never seen before, and communicate the business impact to a non-technical decision maker to close the deal
> be on-site with a customer
> to see real efficiency gains, a company needs to be rebuilt around AI from the ground up...only possible through sitting with the customer and building custom agents that are engineered on company-specific data, with company-specific context
> three main parts of an Applied AI FDE's job: Audit, Evals, and Deployment
> Audit: ...onsite...mapping processes/workflows...example: two weeks with rev ops, one week with procurement, and a full month with finance...determining what should be automated vs what shouldn't...agents can create more problems than they solve...[elaboration]
> Evals: ...correct...thinking like a human would...[elaboration]
> Deployment: ...existing data layer...orchestrator to query...execution environment to test...debug...[elaboration]
> [how to break in]...build projects...explain every single component...30-day plan...
> FDE is the most in-demand role in tech right now