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Break Into AI's Hottest Role: The Forward Deployed Engineer

Hosted by Aki Wijesundara and Manu Jayawardana

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AI Engineering Bootcamp and Certificate: RAG, Agents & Evals
Aki Wijesundara, PhD and Manu Jayawardana
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What you'll learn

The job behind the title — See what an FDE really does day

See what an FDE really does day to day, and why it is different from a software engineer, an ML engineer, or a solutions

The role labs are racing to fill

Understand why OpenAI, Anthropic, and Palantir built this role, and why demand is outpacing the people who can do it.

Your path in, starting now

Learn the skills that matter most, the gap most engineers miss, & the first moves to make yourself a credible candidate

Why this topic matters

Forward Deployed Engineer is the highest-leverage role in AI right now. It sits between building and the customer, rewarding engineers who can ship and talk to people at the same time. That combination is rare, which is why labs are racing to hire it. In this session you will see what the role is, why it exists, and how to get on track for it.

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 Krybe | 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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