Building products that actually work requires engineers who live with customers, not Zoom warriors
The Bold Truth About Product Discovery
Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) are techies who embed directly with customers—not in Zoom calls, but in their offices, warehouses, or hospitals—to understand real problems and build solutions that actually work. This model, pioneered by Palantir and now spreading across AI startups, is becoming the secret weapon for creating products that deliver outcomes instead of features. If you’re building anything complex, especially AI agents, this might be the only way to win.