We'd love to learn from you.
You've done the real work of getting AI into a customer's hands, and we'd love to hear how it actually went. We know most AI projects are messy, and we want to hear something that's real.
As the industry is figuring out in real time what forward deployed engineering is, we want to create a place where practitioners can learn from others doing FDE work: hiring engineers, building teams, making customers happy, and frankly dealing with the day-to-day challenges of being forward deployed.
Forward Deployed Engineering is a group of forward deployed engineers swapping field notes on the messy work of turning AI products into something that actually runs in a customer's hands.
Who you'd be talking to
You'll be interviewed by two practitioners.
We have run FDE teams ourselves for the past four years. Our story goes back to 2021, when we worked at a healthcare startup that worked with OpenAI for three months, back in the GPT-3 days.
Since then, we have built an AI-native engineering company that partners with enterprises in high-complexity industries and has shipped more than 25 AI products to production.
We started this publication because the most useful conversations about this work were happening privately, and we thought they deserved to be written down.
Gabor is the founder and CEO of Progression Labs, which he has been running for the last four years. He was previously CTO of a Y Combinator backed company and holds a PhD in machine learning and autonomous systems.
Joe is a founder's associate at Progression Labs with a background in venture capital. He is helping build out Progression as well as the forward deployed engineering community.
What we stand for
What we stand for.
- Practitioners only. Every piece comes from someone who has actually shipped, not someone commentating from the sidelines.
- Independent. We are not tied to any AI lab, vendor, or recruiter, and we intend to keep it that way.
- Honest about the mess. We care about the real, unglamorous parts of deployment, not the highlight reel.
- Respect for the craft. This work is skilled and underrated, and we want to give it the record it deserves.
What the interview is
A relaxed conversation. You approve everything before it goes out.
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A friendly recorded callAround 30 minutes, remote, whenever suits you. We record it only so we can write from it afterwards. It is a conversation, not an interrogation, and we will share the themes beforehand so nothing is a surprise.
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We do all the writingWe turn the transcript into a clean Q&A, lightly edited for length and clarity. You do not have to write a word.
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You review the draftYou see the full draft before anything is published. Change anything, cut anything, pull anything you would rather keep off the record. Nothing goes live without your yes.
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We publish and share itThe outcome is a written article, a text Q&A only, with no video or audio posted anywhere. It goes out to the Forward Deployed Engineering readership, engineers and teams doing exactly this work, with full credit and links back to you.
What's involved from you
About an hour, total.
Who we've talked to
The kind of conversation you'd be joining.
Our first issue was with Anjor Kanekar, a physicist by training who spent close to a decade as a forward deployed engineer at Palantir, the company that invented the role, and now advises founders building their own FDE functions.
How far are you from product-market fit? That's the variable.
Anjor Kanekar, on why the forward deployed engineer role is so widely misunderstood.
Read the interview →
You in?
Grab a slot that works for you. Worst case, you get a good conversation with people who speak your language. Best case, your hard won lessons help the next engineer figure it out faster.
Book a call →Looking forward to it. Gabor & Joe.