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A day in the life of an FDE

Candidate guide

An FDE, or forward deployed engineer, builds software inside a customer's team. Days vary a lot, because a day in the life of an FDE depends on where the deployment is. Here is what each phase looks like, from what employers publish about the role.

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How to read this

The day follows the deployment

OpenAI FDE projects move through phases. Early scoping happens on site, mapping how the customer works. Validation runs through evals and quality checks. Delivery puts the FDE back on site with the customer.

The days below are composites built from those phases and from published job descriptions. They are not a diary of a named person.

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The kinds of day in the life of an FDE

  1. 01

    Scoping day, on site

    Sit with the people who do the work. Map the current process, find who owns which data, and agree on the measure that should move. End the day with a written scope the customer signs off.

  2. 02

    Build day

    Mostly code: an integration with the customer's systems, a pipeline, an app or an LLM workflow. A short standup with the customer team, and a check on blockers like access or credentials.

  3. 03

    Validation day

    Run evals against real inputs, review failures with a domain expert, fix the worst ones and update the scorecard the customer sees.

  4. 04

    Rollout day

    Release to a first group of users, watch the logs, train people, handle the first bugs yourself and write down what the product team should fix.

What shows up in almost every week

  • Customer meetings From analysts to executives. Palantir's Deployment Strategists present results to audiences "ranging from analysts to C-suite executives".
  • Travel OpenAI, Anthropic and Palantir all list travel in their FDE postings, and the amount varies by team.
  • Field feedback OpenAI expects FDE feedback from the field to change product and model roadmaps.
  • Owning incidents Whoever deployed it fixes it. Some forward deployed roles, like Palantir's enablement engineers, join a formal on-call rotation.

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FAQ

Questions people ask

How much of an FDE's day is coding?

It varies by phase. Build weeks are mostly code. Scoping and rollout weeks are mostly people. Every FDE posting we read expects production code.

Do FDEs work long hours?

Customers set the deadlines, so crunch happens around launches. Some engineers see the pressure to solve customer problems quickly as a downside of the role.

Where do FDEs work when not travelling?

Mostly in their company's office. OpenAI's FDE roles are hybrid, with set office days.

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