The FDE interview curriculum

14 modules, one for each part of the loop. For AI-lab and enterprise FDE roles.

Module 0 is free and live, with no account. In Modules 1 to 5 the first lesson is free and the rest are in Pro. Modules 6 to 13 are in Pro.

106 of 106 lessons live
3 practice cases live

Order the modules forBoth kinds of roleAI labsEnterprise and data

Balanced for both kinds of role. The modules are in course order.

Module 0Recruiter screenBoth kinds of role
The FDE role, decoded
- 7 lessons
- 1 h 11 min
- 7 of 7 live
You will explain what the job is in the words of the company you are talking to, and tell the story of why you want it.
Practice: 2 cases, 19 questions live; 1 question, 1 client scenario, 1 coding drill planned.
Evidence:
- Palantir published
- OpenAI published
- Google published
- Anthropic published
Start with 0.1
See all 7 lessons
1. 0.1What forward deployed engineers do11 minFreeLive
2. 0.2FDE, software engineer, solutions architect, sales engineer: telling them apart11 minFreeLive
3. 0.3Why the role spread when it did9 minFreeLive
4. 0.4Who hires FDEs, and under which titles9 minFreeLive
5. 0.5Travel, location and on-site time: read the posting, then ask9 minFreeLive
6. 0.6How to read an FDE job posting line by line10 minFreeLive
7. 0.7The bridge story, and the short ‘why FDE’ answer12 minFreeLive
Module 1What interviews assessBoth kinds of role
What FDE interviews assess
- 4 lessons
- 48 min
- 4 of 4 live
You will know what each target employer publishes about its loop, what candidates report, and what that leaves unknown.
Practice: 1 case, 15 questions live; 1 question, 6 client scenarios, 3 coding drills, 1 take-home planned.
Evidence:
- Palantir published
- OpenAI published
- Baseten published
- Sierra published
Read 1.1 free
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1. 1.1The evidence map: what employers publish, what candidates report, how to read both14 minFreeLive
2. 1.2What hiring leaders say they look for12 minProLive
3. 1.3The double bar: technical enough, and trusted in front of a customer11 minProLive
4. 1.4AI assistance rules, by company and by stage11 minProLive
Module 2DecompositionBoth kinds of role
The decomposition method
- 14 lessons
- 2 h 44 min
- 14 of 14 live
You will run an open-ended customer problem from the first question to a working first version, out loud, on a board.
Practice: 1 case, 21 questions live; 26 cases, 36 questions, 3 client scenarios, 1 design prompt, 2 SQL drills planned.
Where reported:
- Palantir published, one candidate report
- Databricks one candidate report
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1. 2.1The FDE decomposition interview: the method on one page12 minFreeLive
2. 2.2Clarify before you solve: the first minutes12 minProLive
3. 2.3Stakeholders and success metrics11 minProLive
4. 2.4Inputs: what data exists, who owns it, how fresh it is11 minProLive
5. 2.5Sequence the work by risk and value11 minProLive
6. 2.6The walking skeleton: a functioning first version12 minProLive
7. 2.7Labeling assumptions and surfacing failure modes11 minProLive
8. 2.8Narration, the board and the clock11 minProLive
9. 2.9Product-sense prompts: users, flows, data and one metric12 minProLive
10. 2.10Dataset-first prompts and the short screen12 minProLive
11. 2.11Worked case: a city’s building permits13 minProLive
12. 2.12Worked cases: healthcare and finance13 minProLive
13. 2.13Worked cases: logistics, retail and energy13 minProLive
14. 2.14Problem shapes: recognizing a case you have already solved10 minProLive
Module 3Client simulationBoth kinds of role
Client simulation and customer judgment
- 9 lessons
- 1 h 38 min
- 9 of 9 live
You will run a hard customer conversation to a decision the customer can live with, then write the follow-up.
Practice: 13 questions live; 2 cases, 30 questions, 21 client scenarios, 1 design prompt, 1 take-home planned.
Where reported:
- Ramp published
- Sierra published
- Palantir one candidate report
Read 3.1 free
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1. 3.1What customer rounds look like, and the core moves11 minFreeLive
2. 3.2The moves inside a hard conversation: own it, acknowledge, offer options12 minProLive
3. 3.3Diagnose before you prescribe11 minProLive
4. 3.4From discovery call to technical proposal in one sitting12 minProLive
5. 3.5Delivering slips and bad news11 minProLive
6. 3.6Saying no, and holding scope11 minProLive
7. 3.7De-escalating an angry customer9 minProLive
8. 3.8Writing for customers: executive summaries and the follow-up email11 minProLive
9. 3.9Explaining AI limits to non-technical leaders10 minProLive
Module 4Enterprise system designBoth kinds of role
Enterprise system design for FDEs
- 10 lessons
- 1 h 55 min
- 10 of 10 live
You will design a system that runs inside a customer’s environment, and handle a classic design prompt when you get one.
Practice: 1 case, 19 questions live; 5 cases, 55 questions, 8 client scenarios, 23 design prompts, 8 coding drills, 2 take-homes planned.
Where reported:
- Snowflake published
- Notion published
- C3 AI candidate reports
Read 4.1 free
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1. 4.1Enterprise system design is not ‘design a social network’11 minFreeLive
2. 4.2The classic system design round, when you get one13 minProLive
3. 4.3Walking skeleton and trust boundaries first10 minProLive
4. 4.4Identity and network in someone else’s environment11 minProLive
5. 4.5Data, PII and compliance: what to ask, what to draw, what to leave to the auditor11 minProLive
6. 4.6Integration design: connecting to a customer’s system of record12 minProLive
7. 4.7Change control, observability and rollback in someone else’s environment11 minProLive
8. 4.8The incident round: a customer says requests are failing11 minProLive
9. 4.9Reference architecture: retrieval inside the customer’s cloud13 minProLive
10. 4.10Reference architecture: unifying fragmented data12 minProLive
Module 5CodingBoth kinds of role
Practical coding for FDE rounds
- 8 lessons
- 1 h 31 min
- 8 of 8 live
You will write practical code under a clock (retries, limiters, parsers) and narrate it as you go.
Practice: 36 questions live; 9 questions, 3 design prompts, 35 coding drills, 3 take-homes planned.
Where reported:
- Ramp published
- Palantir published
- Sierra published
Read 5.1 free
See all 8 lessons
1. 5.1What FDE coding rounds test, by the evidence11 minFreeLive
2. 5.2Retries, backoff, idempotency and limiters13 minProLive
3. 5.3Streams, concurrency and backpressure13 minProLive
4. 5.4Messy CSV and JSON: parse, normalize, report what you dropped14 minProLive
5. 5.5Refactoring for testability11 minProLive
6. 5.6Designing small CLIs and tools9 minProLive
7. 5.7Narrating while you code9 minProLive
8. 5.8Python and TypeScript idioms that read as senior11 minProLive
Module 6CodingBoth kinds of role
Screens and unfamiliar code
- 5 lessons
- 1 h 1 min
- 5 of 5 live
You will pass the first screen in its own format and work inside code you have never seen, out loud.
Practice: 21 questions live; 10 questions, 1 design prompt, 23 coding drills, 1 SQL drill planned.
Where reported:
Anthropic published
Palantir published
C3 AI candidate reports
Sierra published
1. 6.1Online assessments and AI-run screens11 minProLive
2. 6.2Algorithm screens: the problems reported at Google, Palantir and C3 AI13 minProLive
3. 6.3Object-oriented and multi-part problems: build it, extend it, scale it12 minProLive
4. 6.4Learning rounds: a new library or concept, taught on the spot12 minProLive
5. 6.5Re-engineering and debugging rounds: someone else’s code, then a feature13 minProLive
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Module 7SQL and dataBoth kinds of role
SQL and data for FDEs
- 8 lessons
- 1 h 28 min
- 8 of 8 live
You will answer business questions in SQL and dataframes, prove your joins, and explain why a query is slow.
Practice: 1 case, 13 questions live; 29 questions, 2 design prompts, 2 coding drills, 22 SQL drills, 1 take-home planned.
Where reported:
Databricks published, one candidate report
Salesforce one candidate report
1. 7.1Where SQL and data work show up in FDE loops10 minProLive
2. 7.2Dataframe and applied data science rounds11 minProLive
3. 7.3Window functions and CTEs12 minProLive
4. 7.4Cohorts, rates and funnels11 minProLive
5. 7.5Reading query plans; indexes and partitions11 minProLive
6. 7.6Slowly changing dimensions, gaps and islands, deduplication11 minProLive
7. 7.7Pipelines: dbt and Airflow mental models, backfills, idempotency11 minProLive
8. 7.8Spark basics for data-platform loops11 minProLive
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Module 8AI systems and evaluationFor AI roles
Production AI systems
- 7 lessons
- 1 h 22 min
- 7 of 7 live
You will design the retrieval, guardrails and hosting of an AI system that runs inside a customer’s environment.
Practice: 1 case, 17 questions live; 33 questions, 5 client scenarios, 11 design prompts, 13 coding drills, 2 take-homes planned.
Evidence:
Anthropic published
Google one candidate report
Salesforce one candidate report
1. 8.1What production AI work FDEs are hired for11 minProLive
2. 8.2Retrieval: parsing, chunking and embeddings13 minProLive
3. 8.3Hybrid search and reranking11 minProLive
4. 8.4Prompt versioning and rollback10 minProLive
5. 8.5Guardrails and prompt-injection defenses12 minProLive
6. 8.6Hosting, cost and latency budgets for model-backed systems14 minProLive
7. 8.7Fine-tune, retrieve or prompt: a decision matrix11 minProLive
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Module 9AI systems and evaluationFor AI roles
Evaluation: proving it works
- 6 lessons
- 1 h 7 min
- 6 of 6 live
You will prove to a customer that an AI system works for them, with evidence they can check.
Practice: 2 cases, 11 questions live; 2 cases, 23 questions, 6 client scenarios, 3 design prompts, 4 coding drills, 3 take-homes planned.
Evidence:
OpenAI published
Anthropic published
Snorkel AI one candidate report
1. 9.1How do you know it works?12 minProLive
2. 9.2Golden sets and stratified sampling11 minProLive
3. 9.3Model judges and their failure modes11 minProLive
4. 9.4Human review loops10 minProLive
5. 9.5Regression suites and drift detection12 minProLive
6. 9.6Evals as customer deliverables and launch criteria11 minProLive
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Module 10AI systems and evaluationBoth kinds of role
The agent design round
- 7 lessons
- 1 h 23 min
- 7 of 7 live
You will run an agent design round as a conversation with a customer’s CTO, and take every follow-up in depth.
Practice: 1 case, 13 questions live; 4 cases, 29 questions, 2 client scenarios, 8 design prompts, 9 coding drills, 2 take-homes planned.
Where reported:
Google candidate reports
Sierra published
Salesforce one candidate report
Nugget one candidate report
1. 10.1The agentic design round: a customer’s CTO wants agents14 minProLive
2. 10.2Agent architecture: tools, permissions and memory14 minProLive
3. 10.3Stuck agents, loops and budgets11 minProLive
4. 10.4Human review and hand-off to a person11 minProLive
5. 10.5Evals for agents, and rollout11 minProLive
6. 10.6Timed prompt-engineering tests11 minProLive
7. 10.7Voice agents in production: latency, turn-taking and call quality11 minProLive
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Module 11BehavioralBoth kinds of role
Behavioral mastery for FDEs
- 8 lessons
- 1 h 24 min
- 8 of 8 live
You will tell your own stories in the first person, in about a minute, and hold up under follow-ups.
Practice: 40 questions live; 2 questions, 4 client scenarios, 2 design prompts planned.
Where reported:
Palantir published, one candidate report
Anthropic published
Stripe one candidate report
1. 11.1What behavioral questions employers say they ask11 minProLive
2. 11.2The stories to prepare11 minProLive
3. 11.3STAR, adapted for customer work10 minProLive
4. 11.4Answering in about a minute, then the follow-ups9 minProLive
5. 11.5The ownership audit: from ‘we’ to what you did9 minProLive
6. 11.6‘Why this company’, built from what the company publishes11 minProLive
7. 11.7Your first months: the interview answer and the real plan12 minProLive
8. 11.8Public-sector and defense loops: clearance, mission and compliance11 minProLive
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Module 12Take-homeBoth kinds of role
Take-homes and presentations
- 8 lessons
- 1 h 26 min
- 8 of 8 live
You will scope, build, write up and present a take-home a reviewer can grade quickly.
Practice: 22 questions live; 7 questions, 3 client scenarios, 1 coding drill, 8 take-homes planned.
Evidence:
OpenAI published
Teleport published
Notch published
ELITH published
1. 12.1Take-homes in FDE loops: what is published and reported11 minProLive
2. 12.2Scoping a time-boxed take-home11 minProLive
3. 12.3The prototype a non-engineer can use: full-stack take-homes12 minProLive
4. 12.4The written deliverable: README, design doc and decision memo11 minProLive
5. 12.5The walkthrough and the demo: structure, defense and a timed pitch11 minProLive
6. 12.6Using AI in a take-home: disclose, log, defend9 minProLive
7. 12.7The live build with AI tools: plan, build, review11 minProLive
8. 12.8Presenting a past project to a technical panel10 minProLive
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Module 13OffersBoth kinds of role
Offers, negotiation and the first months
- 5 lessons
- 56 min
- 5 of 5 live
You will read an FDE offer against posted bands and filings, negotiate it, and know what to ask before you accept.
Practice: 10 questions live.
Evidence:
OpenAI published
Google candidate reports
Cursor one candidate report
1. 13.1Reading FDE pay: posted bands, filings and self-reports11 minProLive
2. 13.2Equity: RSUs, options, PPUs and what to ask12 minProLive
3. 13.3What is negotiable, and how to ask11 minProLive
4. 13.4Comparing offers: the math11 minProLive
5. 13.5Questions to ask before you accept11 minProLive
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Course facts

Reading time

About 20 hours

19 h 54 min across 106 lessons, plus the practice each one ends with.

Before you start

You can write a function that parses a CSV file and reports the bad rows.

Not sure? Try the messy CSV question.

What this course won’t teach

“Design a social network” at consumer scale. The classic design round is taught as FDE loops use it, tied back to a customer.
A full algorithms course. The screens FDE candidates report are covered, not every pattern.
Cloud certifications.

Interviewing for Deployment Strategist?

This course is built for forward deployed engineers. Modules 2, 3 and 7 are the closest fit: decomposition, client simulation, and SQL and data.

The evidence behind the plan

The plan cites 524 claims from our research. Each claim quotes its source word for word, and every lesson lists the sources it uses.

286 from employers' own pages and postings
167 candidate reports
31 press reports
22 our own counts and public data
18 prep sites

How we source what we say. No employer publishes a pass rate or a round weight, so we never state one.

What Pro adds today

Live now

94 Pro lessons
Model answers for 120 Pro interview questions
Every case at every length, up to 10 scored runs a day.

Coming next

0 planned. Each lesson opens here, and in Pro, the day it ships.

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billed annually ($119.99 a year)

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