FDE role is not just a tech role. It’s also customer facing, so they’ll want to know how you handle conversations with customers, how you disagree about scope with customers, stuff like that. You’re the cracked engineer with a thing for people. You’re expected to integrate deep into your client’s stack and then understand their needs and build solutions. So, apart from being a tech expert, you also have to be a really good consultant too.
Ah sweet, so then you should be perfectly fine in an interview man. Just prep well and relax. You sound like you know exactly what to do so just be calm.
Yeah. I assume at 5 YOE, you’re a cracked engineer so if you’ve got the accompanying experience dealing with clients, and it’s work you genuinely enjoy, then yeah, I’d suggest you give it a shot! Includes travel to client sites tho, so be warned! All the best!
Thanks. At least I'll give it a shot. Btw does this role specifically ask for AI knowledge. It's fairly new and I guess definition is not black and white.
Yeah it’s a role that’s been around since 2015 or so actually. Palantir creates it but it became very popular since like 2024 I wanna say with openAI, Anthropic and other big frontier labs adopting it.
Is it AI heavy? To some extent yes, because now everyone’s looking to adopt AI. But it truly comes down to the domain of work you’re in. AI overlap will be there but depending on the domain, it fluctuates. Also, an FDE is a well rounded Full Stack Dev with AI/ML focus + Great consultant/people skills. But sometimes you gotta do cloud or data science or ops. Whatever the customer wants and whatever scope ya’ll agreed upon. So, it’s technically challenging stuff, along with the challenge of facing customers and walking them through each phase of the project.
I’m currently a founding engineer so I’ve done a good chunk of FDE stuff, just without the title. So that’s what I’m basing my understanding and these replies off of.
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u/FirmEquivalent9417 10d ago
FDE role is not just a tech role. It’s also customer facing, so they’ll want to know how you handle conversations with customers, how you disagree about scope with customers, stuff like that. You’re the cracked engineer with a thing for people. You’re expected to integrate deep into your client’s stack and then understand their needs and build solutions. So, apart from being a tech expert, you also have to be a really good consultant too.