DWG. FDE-001 / 2026 EDITION / SELF-PACED COURSE

Forward Deployed
Engineer Mastery.

From engineer to elite field operator. For mid-level engineers (2–8 YOE) breaking into FDE roles at Palantir, Anthropic, OpenAI, Ramp, Scale, and Databricks. Five phases. One capstone. A question bank tuned to the four FDE interview formats.

Curriculum

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  1. 01

    P-01

    Foundations

    5 MOD
  2. 02

    P-02

    Technical Specialization

    6 MOD
  3. 03

    P-03

    AI / ML Specialization

    5 MOD
  4. 04

    P-04

    Client Engagement and Product

    5 MOD
  5. 05

    P-05

    Portfolio and Job Readiness

    6 MOD
START · FDE-00127 MOD TOTAL
FIG. 1Five-phase curriculum, end-to-end.

2.0 / SPECIFICATIONS

Content, not slides.

2.1 · MODULES

27

MODULES · ~44,000 WORDS MDX

Directive, not suggestive. Every module names the failure modes, picks an approach when two exist, and ends with a hands-on project that has measurable success criteria — not just a “by the end you’ll understand” line.

2.2 · RESOURCES

123

GROUNDED RESOURCES

Real, reachable URLs only. Vendor primary docs (AWS, K8s, Anthropic Cookbook, Braintrust), canonical books (DDIA 2e), practitioner writing (Pragmatic Engineer, a16z, McCardel, Mabrey). Each entry has a non-generic why this line.

2.3 · CAPSTONE + INTERVIEW BANK

33

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS · 1 CAPSTONE

The capstone scores you against ground truth using a causal- uplift metric. The interview bank is weighted toward the customer-scenario and system-design rounds — the formats that most distinguish the FDE loop from a standard SWE interview.

3.0 / CALIBRATED AGAINST 2026 POSTINGS

01

Palantir

FDSE

02

Anthropic

Applied AI FDE

03

OpenAI

Forward Deployed

04

Ramp

FDE

05

Scale AI

FDE

06

Databricks

FDE

4.0 / START

The five phases are ready.

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