Where it comes from

How to answer

This can come up in the first call. One candidate reported, in February 2025, that the recruiter screen for OpenAI’s role asked about knowledge of or experience with OpenAI APIs. Source 1OpenAI Forward Deployed Software Engineer (comment by u/aksss123)PublisherReddit r/leetcodeSource typecandidate report on RedditSource 2OpenAI Forward Deployed Software Engineer (comment by u/aksss123)PublisherReddit r/leetcodeSource typecandidate report on RedditSource 3OpenAI Forward Deployed Software Engineer (comment by u/aksss123)PublisherReddit r/leetcodeSource typecandidate report on Reddit At least one posting asks for it outright: Deloitte’s “Anthropic - GPS” posting, as of September 2026, asks for 1+ years of experience with Anthropic, including hands-on experience with at least one of its platform technologies, such as the Claude API or Claude Code. Source 4Anthropic Forward Deployed Engineer - GPSPublisherDeloitte USSource typecompany job posting

The question has two halves, and the second is the one to prepare hardest. You will deploy this product at customers, and a limit you have hit is one you can warn them about. It is also the limit you can bring back to the product team: Vinoo Ganesh, who led Palantir’s Project Frontline rotation, wrote in Latent Space in September 2026 that the engineers who mattered came back and changed what was built. Source 5The Rise of the Forward Deployed Engineer — and How To Do the Job RightPublisherLatent SpaceSource typenews report

  1. Say which product you built on. If you shipped on a competitor’s API, say so, give the limit you hit there, and say what you checked in theirs this week. If you have used neither, build something small against a real problem before the call and say when.
  2. Name what you built and how. What it did and one design decision.
  3. Give one limit you hit. Observed, not read about: what you tried, what happened and how you found out.
  4. Give the workaround and its cost. Extra latency, a second pass, a test set you now maintain.
  5. Turn it into a question. Ask how their FDEs handle that limit at customers, and how field reports reach the product team.

The trap is a critique you could write without building anything: model quality in general, or price. It shows reading, not building, and the next question will be about what you built.

GlossaryForward deployed software engineerPalantir’s title for its FDE role, called Delta internally; OpenAI and EY also post FDSE titles, each with its own duties.More on Forward deployed software engineerGlossaryForward deployed engineerA software engineer who builds and ships production systems inside a customer’s problem and environment, accountable to that customer’s outcome.More on Forward deployed engineer

Follow-ups

What the interviewer may ask next, once your first answer is on the table.

  • Did anyone outside your team depend on what you built, and what happened when it got something wrong?
  • A customer hits the same limit two weeks into a deployment. What do you tell them on the call?
  • If you owned that part of the API, what would you change first?

Where answers go wrong

  • Offers a critique anyone could write without building anything, such as “it hallucinates” or “it’s expensive”.
  • Claims hands-on use from a tutorial or a demo, then cannot answer the first question about what broke.

Answer this in two minutes

Write the answer you would say out loud. The clock starts with your first word.

Two minutes

Illustrative answer about a fictional project

I’ve built one thing with your API that runs in production. The production one is at the freight brokerage where I work.

Learn this in Module 8: Production AI systems, part of the curriculum.

Learn this in Module 11: Behavioral mastery for FDEs, part of the curriculum.