# What is worth reading for a forward deployed engineer?

The library is a short list of writing from outside FDE Club that is worth a forward deployed engineer's time. Each entry gives the title, the author, where and when it was published, and a note from the club on why it is worth reading. Each entry links to the original. Nothing is copied here. It holds 11 entries.

Last verified 2026-11-14 by FDE Club.

- [What are Forward Deployed Engineers, and why are they so in demand?](https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/forward-deployed-engineers), Gergely Orosz, The Pragmatic Engineer, 2025. An account of the role as engineers practise it: how it began at Palantir, how OpenAI runs it, and how a customer project moves from scoping to delivery. The opening sections are free to read and the rest is for subscribers. Start here if the title is new to you.
- [So You Want to Hire a Forward Deployed Engineer](https://review.firstround.com/so-you-want-to-hire-a-forward-deployed-engineer/), First Round Review, First Round Review, 2026. Written for founders, and just as useful from the other side of the table. People who built these teams at Palantir, Ironclad and Looker say what they looked for and how they interviewed. Read it before an interview, and again when you have to explain to your own company what the role is for.
- [Sorry, that isn't an FDE](https://tedmabrey.substack.com/p/sorry-that-isnt-an-fde), Ted Mabrey, Ted's Substack, 2024. A Palantir leader on why most copies of the role fall short of it. His test is ownership: the engineer answers for the customer's result, and what the customer lacks shapes the product. It is short and pointed, and a fair check on whether a job matches its title.
- [WTF is a forward deployed engineer? (and why everyone is hiring them)](https://posthog.com/blog/forward-deployed-engineer), Jina Yoon, PostHog, 2026. A plain primer with a table that sets the forward deployed engineer beside the software engineer: time with customers, travel, and what counts as success. It comes from a company that hires for the role, and it says so. A good piece to send to someone who asks what you do.
- [Is the FDE role becoming less desirable?](https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/is-the-fde-role-becoming-less-desirable), Gergely Orosz, The Pragmatic Engineer, 2026. A short, free follow-up to the same author's long article on the role. Two engineers took the title and found a job with little software development in it. Read the two pieces together, and take from this one the questions to ask an employer before you accept an offer.
- [What I learned analyzing 1K forward deployed engineer jobs](https://bloomberry.com/blog/i-analyzed-1000-forward-deployed-engineer-jobs-what-i-learned/), Henley Wing Chiu, Bloomberry, 2026. Counts from about a thousand postings: the languages and AI skills they name, the experience they ask for, where the role sits in a company and how often it travels. The sample is not Swiss. Read it for the shape of the market, and check a figure against a real posting before you rely on it.
- [Forward Deployed Engineers](https://www.svpg.com/forward-deployed-engineers/), Marty Cagan, Silicon Valley Product Group, 2025. Places the role inside product work. Cagan separates a firm that builds to a client's specification from a company that sends engineers to find what solves the problem, and then asks how lessons from many customers become one product. Read it before you argue for time on the core product.
- [How forward deployed engineers work](https://posthog.com/handbook/forward-deployed-engineering/how-we-work), PostHog, PostHog handbook, 2026. A working handbook, published by a team that does the job. It covers how to scope an engagement, what to agree with the customer before work starts, and how to price by deliverable. Take its scoping brief as a template: an outcome you can measure, a rough timeline and a shared meaning of done.
- [Trading Margin for Moat: Why the Forward Deployed Engineer Is the Hottest Job in Startups](https://a16z.com/services-led-growth/), Joe Schmidt, Andreessen Horowitz, 2025. An investor's case for the role. It argues that AI products which replace a core workflow need hands-on implementation, and that the cost in margin can be worth paying. Read it to see how the people who fund your employer think about your team, and why they advise against giving it a quota.
- [The rise of the forward-deployed engineer (FDE)](https://leaddev.com/career-development/the-rise-of-the-forward-deployed-engineer-fde), Kari McMahon, LeadDev, 2026. Reporting on how fast the title spread in a year, and on what it costs the people who hold it: travel, pressure and the risk of burning out. A former Palantir engineer says in it what the job asks of a person. A fair picture to read before you move into the role.
- [Ten Principles for Growth as an Engineer](https://medium.com/@daniel.heller/ten-principles-for-growth-69015e08c35b), Dan Heller, Medium, 2017. Ten habits that take an engineer from fixing bugs to leading projects, from someone who has built systems and managed teams. None is about a framework. Several are the daily work of a forward deployed engineer: know what the work is worth to the business, never stay blocked, write clearly, and tell people where a project stands before they ask.

Source: https://fdeclub.ch/field-notes/library