The FDE Playbook: What No Job Description Tells You

Hosted by Aishwarya Srinivasan & Arvind Narayan and Nikhil Nainani

Tue, Aug 11, 2026

7:00 PM UTC (30 minutes)

Virtual (Zoom)

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Mastering Agentic AI: Certification by The Gen Academy
Aishwarya Srinivasan and Arvind Narayanamurthy
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What you'll learn

Learn From 4+ Years in the Field

Hear firsthand lessons from an FDE with 4+ years of experience solving complex customer problems.

What Great FDEs Actually Do

Learn how FDEs bridge customers, engineering, and product to turn ambiguous problems into working solutions.

Build the Mindset of a High-Impact FDE

Develop the technical judgment, customer empathy, and ownership needed to succeed in the field.

Why this topic matters

Forward Deployed Engineers are becoming one of the most sought-after roles in AI, yet very few people understand what the job actually entails. In this session, Nikhil Nainani, FDE @ Palantir, shares hard-earned lessons from 4+ years on the front lines, covering the mindset, technical skills, and customer-first approach required to turn ambitious AI ideas into production reality.

You'll learn from

Aishwarya Srinivasan & Arvind Narayan

AI Engineers | Building & Teaching @ The Gen Academy

Aishwarya Srinivasan is the co-founder of The Gen Academy and one of the world's most recognized AI educators, with a community of over 1.2 million AI professionals across social platforms. Previously, she led AI Developer Relations at Fireworks AI and spent over a decade building AI products and ecosystems at Google, Microsoft, and IBM. She holds a Master's in Data Science from Columbia University. Known for breaking down complex AI concepts with clarity and honesty, Aishwarya teaches builders how to move beyond demos and develop production-ready AI systems that solve real business problems.


Arvind Narayanamurthy is the Co-founder of The Gen Academy, Previously AI Solutions Architect at Ema, and Founder of Eikos Health. He has built and deployed enterprise AI systems across Microsoft, IBM, Adobe, and high-growth startups, leading initiatives that translated machine learning into measurable business impact. Arvind holds a Master's degree from Carnegie Mellon University. His teaching focuses on first-principles thinking, practical engineering, and helping builders design, evaluate, and deploy reliable AI systems for production.

Nikhil Nainani

FDE @ Palantir

Nikhil Nainani is a Forward Deployed Engineer at Palantir, where he helps organizations transform their businesses by designing, building, and deploying AI-powered workflows. Previously, he worked as a Machine Learning Engineer at Google, a Quantitative Researcher at a hedge fund, and a Strat at Goldman Sachs. His experience spans AI, large-scale systems, finance, and enterprise transformation.

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