The AI Forward-Deployed Engineer Playbook

Hosted by Aki Wijesundara and Manu Jayawardana

Mon, Jul 27, 2026

3:00 PM UTC (30 minutes)

Virtual (Zoom)

Free to join

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

Understand what an FDE actually does

The shape of the role: embedding with a client and shipping AI inside their real systems, not a sandbox.

Ship into messy systems

How to deliver working AI when the data is dirty, the access is partial, and the requirements keep moving.

Earn trust on the ground

The habits that get a client to rely on what you build, which is most of the job.

Why this topic matters

There is a gap between a clean AI demo and AI that survives a client's real, messy systems. The forward-deployed engineer is the one who closes it on site. In this free 30 minute session you walk through how an FDE embeds with a client, ships AI into the systems they actually have, and handles the surprises a demo never shows. You leave knowing how the FDE role works and what it takes to deliver AI where the data is ugly and the stakes are real.

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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