So how is the FDE role different from a Solutions Architect, Solutions Engineer, even Business Analyst working at a software dev delivery consultancy firm? The Solutions* and BA job titles IMO are a bloody mess right now, seemingly caused by companies that created this issue by meshing job descriptions into one role. Do you also have any advice for BA background persons investigating transitioning into the FDE role? What are the critical skills to gain? What could be valuable experience to obtain now when unemployed?
Great question Whui-Mei! The job titles are becoming messier and messier.
The short version: Solutions Architects and Solutions Engineers typically work pre-sales. They design, demo, prove it can work, then hand off to an implementation team. Job done when the deal closes.
FDEs don't hand anything off. You're embedded with the customer, you build the actual production solution, you ship it, you iterate. There's no implementation team coming after you.
BA skills are genuinely valuable here - but they're one piece of the puzzle.
That's maybe 40% of the role and it's the part most engineers are worst at.
You'd be starting with a real advantage.
The gap you'd need to close is hands-on technical delivery.
Not just understanding systems, but building and shipping them.
My honest advice while you're unemployed: use this moment.
AI genuinely makes you 10x more productive if you lean into it.
Pick a real problem, build something end-to-end, deploy it.
Doesn't have to be complex, but it has to be complete.
You likely already have the communication and problem-solving skills.
Now prove you can ship.
In my opinion, the FDE role exists because companies need people who can do all of it.
And AI levels the playing field and allows more people to do all of it.
Thanks, Milos! I did some googling around and saw that the company you work for has an open role for a FDE, giving me more clues to my understanding.
FDE's role: it sounds like what contractors/consultants hired by a client company would do except that now they are hired by the vendor company of the product (platform). I wonder then, how does the vendor company charge for offering this service? This is resource intensive.
BA skills: can you say which aspects of BA skills are valuable? Is it the skill to enquire to find out the real problem? Process modelling and analysis? What about business case modelling?
Regarding picking problems to solve for my learning now, what would it be related to or what types of issues are companies typically facing? It seems to me it's more workflow automation+redesign related rather than vibe-coding web apps. So I'm guessing it could be drawing insights from CRM, ERP systems or enriching data in those systems. I could be wrong, and thank you for your patience with my noob questions!
For the vendor company, the FDE team is an investment. The idea is that FDEs feed learnings back into the product. With enough improvements, future customers won't need as much hand-holding. You're basically buying product insights with people instead of guesswork.
BA skills that transfer: communication, stakeholder management, requirements gathering, problem decomposition. The ability to sit with someone, ask the right questions, and figure out what they actually need versus what they say they need.
For picking problems to practice on: there's no single answer, and honestly that's part of the job. But in general: every company wants to increase revenue and cut costs. So we're often looking at tedious, manual tasks that eat up people's time. Can we automate them? Make them faster? Remove them entirely?
You're right that it's more workflow automation than vibe-coding web apps. CRM/ERP data enrichment, document processing, internal tooling - that kind of thing. Less flashy, more useful.
Thanks again Milos for sharing your observations and analysis! I have a follow-up question about the business model of the vendor company and will post it in the comments section for your latest article.
Hey Milos! Great article. One FDE to another, I look forward to hearing and sharing the interesting lessons un-sanitized interesting lessons :)
Thanks Kanav! Looking forward to your contributions as well! :)
Great read! Thanks for creating this. Looking forward to learning and contributing to this community!
So how is the FDE role different from a Solutions Architect, Solutions Engineer, even Business Analyst working at a software dev delivery consultancy firm? The Solutions* and BA job titles IMO are a bloody mess right now, seemingly caused by companies that created this issue by meshing job descriptions into one role. Do you also have any advice for BA background persons investigating transitioning into the FDE role? What are the critical skills to gain? What could be valuable experience to obtain now when unemployed?
Great question Whui-Mei! The job titles are becoming messier and messier.
The short version: Solutions Architects and Solutions Engineers typically work pre-sales. They design, demo, prove it can work, then hand off to an implementation team. Job done when the deal closes.
FDEs don't hand anything off. You're embedded with the customer, you build the actual production solution, you ship it, you iterate. There's no implementation team coming after you.
BA skills are genuinely valuable here - but they're one piece of the puzzle.
That's maybe 40% of the role and it's the part most engineers are worst at.
You'd be starting with a real advantage.
The gap you'd need to close is hands-on technical delivery.
Not just understanding systems, but building and shipping them.
My honest advice while you're unemployed: use this moment.
AI genuinely makes you 10x more productive if you lean into it.
Pick a real problem, build something end-to-end, deploy it.
Doesn't have to be complex, but it has to be complete.
You likely already have the communication and problem-solving skills.
Now prove you can ship.
In my opinion, the FDE role exists because companies need people who can do all of it.
And AI levels the playing field and allows more people to do all of it.
Thanks, Milos! I did some googling around and saw that the company you work for has an open role for a FDE, giving me more clues to my understanding.
FDE's role: it sounds like what contractors/consultants hired by a client company would do except that now they are hired by the vendor company of the product (platform). I wonder then, how does the vendor company charge for offering this service? This is resource intensive.
BA skills: can you say which aspects of BA skills are valuable? Is it the skill to enquire to find out the real problem? Process modelling and analysis? What about business case modelling?
Regarding picking problems to solve for my learning now, what would it be related to or what types of issues are companies typically facing? It seems to me it's more workflow automation+redesign related rather than vibe-coding web apps. So I'm guessing it could be drawing insights from CRM, ERP systems or enriching data in those systems. I could be wrong, and thank you for your patience with my noob questions!
For the vendor company, the FDE team is an investment. The idea is that FDEs feed learnings back into the product. With enough improvements, future customers won't need as much hand-holding. You're basically buying product insights with people instead of guesswork.
BA skills that transfer: communication, stakeholder management, requirements gathering, problem decomposition. The ability to sit with someone, ask the right questions, and figure out what they actually need versus what they say they need.
For picking problems to practice on: there's no single answer, and honestly that's part of the job. But in general: every company wants to increase revenue and cut costs. So we're often looking at tedious, manual tasks that eat up people's time. Can we automate them? Make them faster? Remove them entirely?
You're right that it's more workflow automation than vibe-coding web apps. CRM/ERP data enrichment, document processing, internal tooling - that kind of thing. Less flashy, more useful.
Thanks again Milos for sharing your observations and analysis! I have a follow-up question about the business model of the vendor company and will post it in the comments section for your latest article.