FDE Handbook

The Azure Partners handbook for Forward Deployed Engineers: nine modules from understanding the role to interviewing for it. Start with Module 0 whatever your background, then follow the reading path in Handbook Reading Paths.

Use the language menu in the header to switch between English and 中文.

This public edition contains Modules 0 and 6. Modules marked “Full handbook” are available to the Azure Partners team.

• M0 · Start Here — Understanding the FDE Role
  3 lessons · 1.5–3 h

  Give readers who don't yet know what an FDE is a map before any engineering: what the role is accountable for, how it differs from neighboring roles, and which module builds the capability each stage of FDE delivery needs. Orientation only, no engineering detail.

• M1 · AI-Assisted Development & Software Systems Foundations Full handbook
  6 lessons · 28–42 h

  Build a mental model of modern software systems for beginners or technically rusty learners, and enable them to read, run, modify, debug, and deploy code with AI coding tools. The focus is system understanding rather than syntax memorization.

• M2 · AI Application Engineering Full handbook
  6 lessons · 28–43 h

  Turn LLMs from “chat tools” into verifiable, integrable application capabilities. Use a Tutor / Customer Support RAG case to build foundations in prompting, RAG, tool calling, evaluation, and guardrails.

• M3 · Agent Engineering — From Prompts to Scalable Agent Systems Full handbook
  6 lessons · 31–49 h

  Define an agent as a job with real boundaries, give it reusable skills backed by code where needed, choose between a workflow, a single agent and multiple agents, and make its state, long-running work and failures manageable. An agent is not simply a prompt, and more agents are not automatically better.

• M4 · Enterprise Integration & Production AI Full handbook
  5 lessons · 27–42 h

  Teach learners that real customer environments involve data, APIs, permissions, security, deployment, observability, cost, and reliability beyond prompts/agents, and develop judgment about when deeper engineering is required.

• M5 · FDE Discovery, Consulting & Delivery Full handbook
  7 lessons · 39–62 h

  Train the core capabilities that distinguish FDEs from typical AI Engineers: entering ambiguous customer environments, finding the real problem, defining outcomes, managing scope, making technical/business trade-offs, and driving pilots, acceptance, handoff, and productization.

• M6 · Four Representative FDE Use-Case Archetypes
  4 lessons · 27–40 h

  Use four realistic cases of increasing complexity to demonstrate the same FDE method repeatedly. Industry is the context; the goal is to understand why different business problems require different technical depth.

• M7 · FDE End-to-End Practicum Full handbook
  6 lessons · 52–78 h

  Learners choose an approved customer-style use case and complete a full FDE delivery from Discovery through Release/Handoff. This is the core job-search portfolio module and is not tied to a fixed number of weeks.

• M8 · Career Preparation & FDE Interviews Full handbook
  4 lessons · 15–25 h

  Turn real curriculum and practicum outputs into verifiable job-search evidence, and prepare for common FDE interviews in engineering, system design, problem decomposition, customer communication, and project deep dives.