Shyam Sankar responded that the role drives core product strategy.
"Everyone gets FDEs wrong.
The job of an FDE isn't to make the product work, it's to accelerate customer adoption and time-to-value.
If you need FDEs just to deliver the product, you're not running a software company, you're running a services business with a bad product." @matanSF
Do you agree and what do people misunderstand most about what it takes to do FDE motion well? @ssankar @chadwahl @nikogrupen @barrald @lkothari @LeoMehr @zkevinbai
Many users agreed with Harry Stebbings that forward deployed engineers should accelerate adoption instead of fixing products, while others saw the role as evidence of poor product quality or rebranded services work.
The first fundamental truth is that FDE is not a role, it is a product strategy.
It has to originate from the fount of the product org.
You judge an FDE org by the fruits they bear! What new product was discovered, what Thielan secrets were mined and refined into weapons grade product?
(but hey, what do I know about FDE 🤷♂️)
@HarryStebbings Accordingly, you already know this is NOT FDE (ignore the misguided commentary by the OP in the QT, it is the commentary in the video around "power center" and the corrupting focus that implies to the FDE Project)
Yes, FDEs have to have a thick product (our case Foundry, Ontology, AIP) in order to stand in front of a customer and build live, it’s leverage to accelerate not a way to cover for a thin product.
I actually think it’s a bit of a Trojan horse for those with thin products that it will actually be very painful for them and the customer, not in a productive way.
@matanSF hey interesting insight just wanted to highlight a $300,000,000,000 counterpoint you might want to consider
@ssankar @HarryStebbings Strongly agree here. Something I missed in this clip was that the other side of FDE for us is being the tip of the spear of product
If you need FDEs to make your product work, you have a shit product
"Everyone gets FDEs wrong.
The job of an FDE isn't to make the product work, it's to accelerate customer adoption and time-to-value.
If you need FDEs just to deliver the product, you're not running a software company, you're running a services business with a bad product." @matanSF
Do you agree and what do people misunderstand most about what it takes to do FDE motion well? @ssankar @chadwahl @nikogrupen @barrald @lkothari @LeoMehr @zkevinbai
@HarryStebbings Disagree — FDE means something different at every company depending on product, business, maturity, which other roles exist, whether it’s under GTM or PED. Over generalized blanket statements. Main through line is customer-obsessed engineers. Eg at Ramp http://ramp.com/fde
@matanSF i don’t think that’s true - or is at least overly reductionist
@mttgrmm Palantir has great products that work quite well. This is not a counterpoint
@ssankar @HarryStebbings Agree with this! FDE is both a product and business strategy
@jeffreyhuber Definitely reductionist :)
@HarryStebbings Feels like FDEs are a symptom of a bad product or bad customer discovery. Feels like we just rebranded professional services/implementation services with a new title for the AI era
@ssankar @HarryStebbings Shyam is the one true OG of FDEs. The Neil Armstrong of FDEs. 🙇♂️🔮🔥
@matanSF hot take
@HarryStebbings hi @HarryStebbings FDE has about as much to do with “delivering product” as a car does with carpet.
FDE is the product.
Enterprise customers expect software to fit their business, not vice versa. FDE makes that possible without bloating the core product.
@matanSF My understanding is FDEs work to identify business opportunities and build out templates of customer needs.
It’s wild how little people have adopted the tools you’ve been building huge educational gap
@ssankar @HarryStebbings You cannot have a job description for FDE. They will be deeply embedded into customer's environment, workflows with autonomous and accountability.
@HarryStebbings @grok define FDE and explain context of comments in video
@HarryStebbings A lot of companies are labeling very different teams as “FDE”. I’d highly recommend this piece from Ted, Palantir’s Head of Commercial:
https://tedmabrey.substack.com/p/sorry-that-isnt-an-fde
It’s entirely possible the kind of FDE @matanSF is describing is only necessary when the underlying product is weak.
@ssankar @HarryStebbings @PalantirTech - the OG of FDE: Forward Deployed Engineer
@OpenAI - the copycat of FDE: Forward Duplicated Engineer
