Advanced / Staff FDE
FDE judgment, backed by AI engineering depth.
This is a blend, not a single cycle. The honest version of a senior FDE profile: someone who has both the customer-facing judgment from the FDE rung and the technical depth from AI engineering (or another role rung) to back it up.
Who it's for
Engineers who have completed FDE plus AI Engineering or another role rung.
Built from these rungs
Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE)
One cycle to a hireable FDE role — with an honest floor.
Customer-facing engineering: rapid prototyping, integration work, and shipping under ambiguous, changing requirements. Be honest with yourself about the floor here — FDE rewards judgment and communication as much as code, and this cycle alone does not make you senior.
AI Engineering
One cycle to a hireable AI engineering role.
Applied GenAI and agentic systems: RAG pipelines, tool-using agents, evaluation, and production hardening. This is a role rung, not the whole ladder — it's one of several tracks you can stack.
What proof looks like
At this level, proof means a coherent portfolio across rungs, not one isolated project.
- Multiple shipped integrations or prototypes across different customer contexts
- At least one deep technical artifact (not just glue code) from a role rung
- Written case studies showing judgment under ambiguity, not just code output