How to pass the AI FDE Interview at MAANG

Hosted by Aki Wijesundara and Manu Jayawardana

Mon, Aug 24, 2026

8:00 PM UTC (30 minutes)

Virtual (Zoom)

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AI Engineering Bootcamp and Certificate: Build and Ship Production AI Agents
Dr. Aki Wijesundara and Manu Jayawardana
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What you'll learn

Map the four stages of the FDE loop

See where deployed AI work actually stalls, and which stage you keep skipping.

Turn a vague client ask into a scoped build

Use one framing question to cut a fuzzy request down to something you can ship this week.

Know when to hand the loop back to the product team

Spot the signal that a one-off fix has become a feature, before you own it forever.

Why this topic matters

Forward deployed engineering has become the default way AI gets into a business. Someone sits with the users, builds the ugly first version, watches it break, and rebuilds it in the same week. The loop is the job. Most teams still treat it as consulting with extra steps, so they deliver decks instead of working software and lose the account at renewal.

You'll learn from

Aki Wijesundara

AI Advisor | Educator | Google AI Accelerator Alum

Aki Wijesundara is an AI leader with a PhD in Machine Learning and extensive experience mentoring startups at Google’s AI Accelerator. With a career spanning both research and applied AI, Aki has taught 5,000+ students worldwide how to design and deploy production-ready AI systems.

He has worked across cutting-edge areas of applied AI, from LangChain and RAG pipelines to observability and large-scale deployment. As a researcher and educator, Aki bridges the gap between theory and practice, making complex systems approachable and actionable for engineers, founders, and product leaders.

Aki is also a frequent speaker and advisor to organizations adopting AI, helping them transition from experimentation to production at scale.

Manu Jayawardana

AI Founder | Co-Founder & CEO at TAI Labs | Co-Founder of Snapdrum

Manu Jayawardana is a serial entrepreneur with multiple AI startup successes.

He is also the Co-Founder of Snapdrum, an AI consultancy helping companies integrate and automate their businesses using AI. Through Snapdrum, Manu has worked with top startups and enterprises across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, advising on automation, product development, and AI strategy.

Currently, Manu is the Co-Founder & CEO of Krybe, an AI voice agent startup in London transforming how businesses automate customer interactions. His experience spans fundraising, scaling products, and leading teams to deliver production-grade AI solutions adopted globally.

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