Find Out If You're Ready for an FDE Role
Assess your technical, delivery, and client-facing skills. Get your FDE level, salary range, and personalized preparation roadmap in 10 minutes.
10 minutes · Personalized report · No credit card
Estimated Market Range
$145k–$185k total comp · mid-level · US
Recommended Roadmap
Client discovery → System design → Mock interview
Primary Gap
Client Communication — Practice with case studies
chapters of content
case studies
interview questions
skill dimensions assessed
Assessment framework based on public FDE job descriptions, interview patterns from leading AI companies, and feedback from practicing engineers.
Built for engineers who want customer-facing technical roles
Built for
- Software engineers considering customer-facing roles
- AI engineers preparing for deployment-focused interviews
- Solutions engineers moving into deeper technical roles
- FDE candidates preparing for interviews at Palantir, Scale AI, Vercel, and similar companies
Probably not for
- Complete programming beginners
- People only looking for LeetCode practice
- Non-technical sales roles
- Candidates seeking guaranteed job placement
How it works
Assess
Take the free skill assessment. Get your FDE level and salary estimate.
Learn
Study the chapters you need. Focus on your gaps, not what you already know.
Practice
Use the Interview Simulator to prepare for real scenarios.
Apply
Explore roles, salary benchmarks, and companies based on your FDE profile.
Everything you need, the modern way
Six tools. One platform. No fluff.
SKILL ASSESSMENT
Answer scenario-based questions and receive your FDE level, strongest skills, biggest gaps, and next-step roadmap.
Take Assessment →INTERVIEW SIMULATOR
Practice technical, client-facing, and system-design interviews with follow-up questions and detailed feedback.
Try Interview →LEARNING HUB
Learn production AI deployment, customer discovery, architecture trade-offs, and technical communication.
Browse Chapters →SALARY EXPLORER
Compare FDE compensation by level, company tier, and region with sourced market data.
Explore Salaries →JOB BOARD
Curated FDE and deployment engineering roles matched to your skill profile.
View Roles →CASE LIBRARY
Study deployment decisions, constraints, trade-offs, and lessons from enterprise AI scenarios.
Read Cases →I built FDE Instinct because preparing for FDE roles shouldn't feel like guesswork.— Master Yang, Founder of FDE Instinct
Built independently with feedback from engineers working across AI infrastructure, solutions architecture, and enterprise software.
Real-world case studies
Learn from public deployment stories, reconstructed scenarios, and failure patterns from enterprise AI systems.
70B Model from PoC to Production
Moving a 70B model into production with vLLM, PagedAttention, and INT8 quantization.
Read case study →SuccessRaising GPU Utilization from 40% to 75%
Profiling and optimizing GPU inference for 2x utilization improvement.
Read case study →FailureFailure Analysis: Missing AI Service Layer
Architecture planned a service layer but model calls ended up in the frontend.
Read case study →Simple pricing, the right way
No surprises. No hidden fees.
Free
Try before you buy.
- 3 chapters of content
- 5 interview questions
- 1 skill assessment
- Full salary data
- 1 case study
Lifetime
Everything you need to prepare for FDE roles.
- All 24 chapters
- All 16 case studies
- 30+ interview questions
- 3 AI simulations per month
- Personalized roadmap
- Lifetime updates
Lifetime Pro
For engineers who want an edge.
- Everything in Lifetime
- 10 AI simulations per month
- Discord community
- Weekly group AMA
- Priority content requests
- 1 mock interview credit
Interview
Just need interview prep?
- Unlimited AI simulations
- Detailed AI feedback
- 30+ question library
- Interview history tracking
30-day money-back guarantee.
| Feature | Free | Lifetime $49 | Pro $99 | Interview $29/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Learning Hub chapters | 3 | All 24 | All 24 | — |
| Interview questions | 5 | 30+ | 30+ | 30+ |
| AI interview simulations | 1 | 3/month | 10/month | Unlimited |
| Detailed AI feedback | Limited | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Case studies | 1 | All 16 | All 16 | — |
| Skill assessment | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | — |
| Salary data | Full | Full | Full | — |
| Personalized roadmap | — | Yes | Yes | — |
| Community access | — | — | Yes | — |
| 1:1 Coaching | — | — | Add-on | Add-on |
Choose Lifetime for structured preparation over weeks.·Choose Interview if your interview is within 30 days.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Forward Deployed Engineer?
An FDE is an engineer who works directly with customers to deploy and customize software products. The role was popularized by Palantir and is now adopted by companies like Scale AI, Vercel, and Databricks.
How is FDE Instinct different from traditional courses?
Traditional courses deliver fixed lessons. FDE Instinct starts with a skills diagnosis, then connects your gaps to targeted learning modules, real-world case studies, and AI-powered interview practice — so you only study what you actually need.
Do I get future updates?
Yes. Lifetime plan includes all future content updates at no additional cost.
Ready to find your FDE instinct?
Take the free skill assessment. Know your level in 10 minutes.
Start Free Assessment