Interview rounds
How to build a golden set for LLM evals when the customer has no labeled data
The customer wants proof and has no labels. Build a golden set from real traffic: stratified sampling, expert labels, agreement checks and versioning.
The FDE interview blog, page 5
Narrow, sourced articles on forward deployed engineer interviews. Each one links to the guide it belongs to, and every fact in it names its source.
Posts 49 to 60 of 100.
Pay and offers
How to negotiate a forward deployed engineer offer: what moves, what doesn’t, and the words to use
Your FDE offer came with a deadline. What candidates report moved and what didn’t, with scripts for the first call, competing offers, equity and deadlines.
Preparation
How to run an FDE mock interview on your own, round by round
Run a realistic FDE mock interview on your own: timers, prompts, recordings, a self-scoring checklist and a script for the friend who plays your customer.
Interview rounds
How to tell a customer the project is late: the interview answer and the real email
A structure for telling a customer the project is late: the spoken answer, the follow-up email, and the phrases that make it worse.
The FDE role
Is being a forward deployed engineer stressful? Travel, context switching and burnout, in FDEs’ own words
Hotel weeks, customer pressure and constant switching. What former FDEs and leaders say about the strain, what no one measures, and what to ask a team.
The FDE role
Is FDE a step down from software engineering? What the hiring-bar evidence says
A friend called FDE ‘SWE-lite’. What hiring leaders and candidates say about the FDE technical bar, how to judge a role, and how to stay sharp in one.
What the evidence says
Is FDE demand real? How to read the growth numbers you keep seeing
FDE growth headlines come from different datasets, windows and methods. What each figure measures, what it misses and what it means for your job search.
The FDE role
Is the forward deployed engineer role here to stay? The case for and against, and the skills that last
The case for and against the forward deployed model, from the companies investing in it and the people doubting it, and the skills that last either way.
What the evidence says
Is there a decomposition interview rubric? What employers describe and what no one publishes
No employer publishes a decomposition interview rubric. What Palantir describes, what prep sites say interviewers score, and a checklist to use instead.
Interview rounds
LLM evaluation in the interview: how to answer ‘how do you know it works?’
The demo looks great, then the interviewer asks how you know it works. A full answer names the metric, the data, the baseline, the result and monitoring.
Interview rounds
LLM-as-a-judge: the failure modes to name before the interviewer does
Position bias, verbosity bias, self-preference and rubric drift: the LLM-as-a-judge failure modes, and how to check a judge against human labels.
Preparation
No customer-facing experience? How to show FDE hiring managers you can handle customers
FDE postings ask for customer-facing experience. What hiring leaders say counts, where to find it in your past, and how to write it on your resume.
Start with a guide
Every post belongs to a longer guide. Each guide covers its topic whole.
- The decomposition interview: how to break down a vague customer problem
- The forward deployed engineer interview, round by round
- The forward deployed engineer resume
- Forward deployed engineer salary: what employers post and file
- Forward deployed engineer vs sales engineer
- Forward deployed engineer vs software engineer
- Forward deployed engineer vs solutions architect
- What is a forward deployed engineer?