Forward Deployed Engineer Glossary: FDE, | FDE Pulse

Forward deployed engineering has its own vocabulary, much of it inherited from Palantir and now spreading across AI labs and enterprise software. This glossary defines the titles and concepts you will run into, and links each one to deeper salary, career, and comparison pages.

Applied AI Engineer

An Applied AI Engineer builds AI into real products and customer use cases, rather than doing core model resea...

Delta (Palantir)

At Palantir, a Delta is the Forward Deployed Engineer: the embedded engineer who writes production-grade code ...

Deployment Strategist

A Deployment Strategist is the business-facing half of a forward deployed team: an embedded analyst who finds ...

At Palantir, a Dev is a core Software Engineer who builds the product platform itself, owning one capability a...

Echo (Palantir)

At Palantir, an Echo is the Deployment Strategist: an embedded analyst who finds the highest-impact use cases ...

FDE (Forward Deployed Engineer)

An FDE is a Forward Deployed Engineer, a software engineer who embeds directly with a customer to build, integ...

FDSE (Forward Deployed Software Engineer)

FDSE stands for Forward Deployed Software Engineer, Palantir's title for the engineering-heavy version of the ...

A Field Engineer provides on-site technical support and implementation for a product. It is an older, narrower...

Forward Deployed AI Engineer

A Forward Deployed AI Engineer is an FDE who specializes in deploying AI and LLM systems, like RAG pipelines a...

Forward Deployed Developer

Forward Deployed Developer is a common variant of the Forward Deployed Engineer title. It means the same role,...

A GTM Engineer builds automation and tooling that powers a company's sales and marketing motion. It is an inte...

Implementation Engineer

An Implementation Engineer configures and integrates a product for a customer during onboarding. It is narrowe...

Last-mile AI is the final integration work that turns a capable model into a system that actually works inside...

Services-as-Software

Services-as-software is the model of delivering what used to be human consulting through software plus embedde...

Solutions Engineer

A Solutions Engineer is a pre-sales technical role that runs demos and proofs of concept to help close deals. ...

Technical Account Manager (TAM)

A Technical Account Manager owns the post-sale technical relationship with a customer, giving guidance and coo...

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