I sit down with Vas from Varick Agents to map out exactly how to break into AI forward deployed engineering — and how to grow into a sharper FDE — in thirty days. We start from a single premise: every company can now buy the same frontier intelligence, so the real advantage moves to deployment. Vas traces the role back to Palantir, explains the judgment that decides where AI belongs, and lays out the audit → evals → deployment loop that turns raw models into measurable business value. He then hands over a full 30-day plan to build, harden, measure, and defend a production-grade agent, so you can do the job before you hold the title. The whole conversation stays tactical and grounded, with clear examples I can apply today.
The FDE Blueprint: https://startup-ideas-pod.link/fde-starter
Timestamps
00:00 – Intro
02:03 – What is an FDE
04:09 – How Palantir Popularized FDEs
06:16 – Deciding Where Intelligence Belongs
11:26 – What FDEs Earn
14:59 – Two Kinds of Judgment: Communication and Engineering
17:38 – How the Work Really Gets Done
20:40 – Audit, Evaluation, Deployment
22:56 – Which LLM to Choose
27:36 – Audit: Finding the Workflow Worth Rebuilding
31:47 – Evals: Turn non-determinism into evidence
32:57 – Deployment: Build on Existing Systems
38:59 – The 30-Day Plan Begins
49:13 – Final Thoughts
Key Points
Intelligence is now commoditized, so the real edge lives in deployment — the job of the AI forward deployed engineer.
Vas traces the FDE role to Palantir, where engineers embed on-site, learn workflows, and customize the ontology per client.
The strongest FDEs blend deep technical skill with consulting-grade communication — the rare "art plus science" combination worth up to a million dollars a year.
The FDE loop runs audit → evals → deployment, and each improved workflow makes the next one clearer.
Vas condenses a year of learning into a 30-day plan: build an agent, harden it, make it measurable, then defend it like an FDE
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FIND VAS ON SOCIAL
Varick Agents: https://www.varickagents.com/#hero-section
X/Twitter: https://x.com/vasuman
AI Forward Deployed Engineers: https://learn.varickagents.com/fde-in-30-days
