By FDE Interview Prep, a SourceStrongAI company

In this post11 sections
  1. The form is part of the screen
  2. Why this company: the motivation question
  3. Yes-or-no screens: onsite, travel, clearance and pay
  4. Experience questions: customers, agents and a portfolio
  5. Short prompts with a word limit
  6. Who wrote it: the AI rules for applications
  7. A checklist before you press submit
  8. Practice the answers out loud
  9. Questions people ask
  10. Keep reading
  11. More from the blog

You found the posting, you attached the resume you spent a week on, and then the form keeps going: why this company, a time you changed your mind, whether you can be in the office every day. No one has spoken to you yet, and the first thing you are asked to do is write. This post sits under the FDE resume guide, which covers the document itself; here we take the questions that come with it.

The short answer: expect four kinds, namely why this company, yes-or-no screens (office, travel, pay, clearance), experience questions, and short prompts with a word limit. Each has one job. A motivation question shows you know what the work is. A yes-or-no screen has to be one you can keep. An experience question needs one named customer or one real system. A short prompt with a word limit needs one story, told with a decision in it. Write the first draft yourself, and treat the form as the first interview: Anthropic asks for your own first draft, and Snowflake requires everything you submit to be generated by you. Source 1Guidance on Candidates' AI UsagePublisherAnthropicSource typecompany websiteSource 2AI Cheat Sheet: How (and When) to Use AI in Your Snowflake InterviewPublisherSnowflake CareersSource typecompany hiring page If you meant interview questions, start with why FDE and not software engineering. Our bank has 180 of them, and every one shows its framework free.

The form is part of the screen

Here is what five FDE application forms asked when we checked them in September 2026, from Anthropic’s to Modal’s. Source 3Forward Deployed Engineer application formPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse job board)Source typecompany job posting Source 4Forward Deployed Engineer - ML @ ModalPublisherModal (Ashby)Source typecompany job posting You can open each form before you apply, and you should: forms change and close without notice.

Employer and formWhat it asked
Anthropic, FDEA required “Why do you want to work at Anthropic?”, with a note that great answers are often 200-400 words Source 3Forward Deployed Engineer application formPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse job board)Source typecompany job posting
Palantir, New Grad FDSEConfirm you want FDSE rather than Software Engineer, and short prompts such as a time you changed your mind Source 5Apply: Forward Deployed Software Engineer, New Grad - Commercial (New York, NY) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting
Palantir, US Government FDSEClearance status, the advertised travel and pay range, and travel to Europe or the IndoPacific Source 6Apply: Forward Deployed Software Engineer - US Government (Washington, D.C.) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting
LangChain, Deployed EngineerOnsite availability, and whether you have designed LLM-powered applications and built agents Source 7Application formPublisherLangChain (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job posting
Modal, FDE - MLOffice location, hands-on Python and ML framework experience, and comfort embedding with enterprise customers Source 4Forward Deployed Engineer - ML @ ModalPublisherModal (Ashby)Source typecompany job posting

Written questions on these forms go back years: one candidate’s August 2022 Medium post on Palantir’s internship in Sydney describes 5 written application questions, alongside a coding test and a recruiter call. Source 8Interviewing at Palantir Technologies : FDSE InternshipPublisherMedium (Meghna Dutta)Source typecandidate’s personal write-up

None of these employers publishes how the answers are scored. So don’t write to game a filter; write as if a skeptical engineer will read every word.

Before you type anything, read the posting line by line. Our free lesson on reading a job posting shows how to pull out the office terms, travel, pay range and customer type: most of what the yes-or-no questions ask you to agree to.

Why this company: the motivation question

Its job is to show that you know what the FDE does at this employer, and that you have done a smaller version of it. Admiration is not evidence.

Our method has three parts, in this order:

  1. One thing you did. A real decision on a real system, with what it cost. “I recommended we delay the launch until the customer’s data was cleaned” is evidence. “I’m passionate about applied AI” is not.
  2. One thing the employer published. A line from the posting, a product decision or a stated principle, and what it would mean in the FDE’s seat.
  3. Why this role there. Use the posting’s own terms for the work, and say why you want it embedded with customers rather than on a product team.

Run the swap test before you submit: replace the company’s name with a competitor’s. Every sentence that still reads as true is filler.

Weak: “I’ve followed the company for years and I admire its commitment to building useful, responsible AI. I’m excited to bring my engineering skills to a world-class team.”

Stronger (a fictional opening paragraph; a full answer runs longer): “At a logistics software company, I spent most of last year inside one customer’s dispatch team, replacing a spreadsheet they reconciled by hand with a service that read their carrier feeds directly. The hard part was not the code; it was persuading their operations lead to trust numbers she had not typed. Your posting describes building production systems inside customer environments. That is the part of my job I want to do full time, with a model at the center instead of a rules engine.”

That is step 1: a customer and a hard part. But its last two sentences fit any FDE posting, so it does not pass the swap test yet. Now add step 2. Anthropic’s FDE postings list servers, sub-agents and skills as things FDEs deliver for customers’ production workflows Source 3Forward Deployed Engineer application formPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse job board)Source typecompany job posting, so a candidate who has shipped a tool integration can name that line and say which of those they would build first. That sentence is true of one employer only.

Anthropic’s form puts a length on this answer: great answers are often 200-400 words. Source 3Forward Deployed Engineer application formPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse job board)Source typecompany job posting For the full build of that answer, with the published stances worth engaging, read how to answer “Why Anthropic?”.

The confirmation that is also a motivation question

Palantir’s New Grad FDSE form asks you to confirm that you want the Forward Deployed Software Engineer role rather than Software Engineer. Source 5Apply: Forward Deployed Software Engineer, New Grad - Commercial (New York, NY) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting It is a confirmation, not an essay, but be ready to explain it. Have your answer to why FDE and not software engineering ready before you confirm. The free lesson on the bridge story helps you find the one project that makes that answer believable.

Yes-or-no screens: onsite, travel, clearance and pay

These look like admin. A recruiter may bring any of them up later, so answer as if you are signing.

How to answer them

  • Read the posting first. Palantir’s pay and travel questions refer to the range and travel on the posting. Source 6Apply: Forward Deployed Software Engineer - US Government (Washington, D.C.) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting Otherwise you agree to numbers you have not seen.
  • Don’t say yes to get past the form. A yes you can’t keep surfaces later, when it costs everyone more time. If you are unsure, find out before you submit: check whether the posting or the careers page states office days and travel, and ask a recruiter to confirm. If the honest answer is “yes, except”, put the exception in the text box. If there is no box and you cannot meet the requirement, this posting may not be the one.
  • Use any free-text field for one sentence. “Yes. I’m relocating to New York in the spring and can be in the office from my start date.” A fact, no apology.
  • Match your later answers. If you said yes to the posted range, don’t open the pay conversation far above it. Practice the compensation expectations question so the two agree.
  • For clearance, answer the status you have. Be ready for follow-ups on whether you can get one and how you feel about the work; this question on clearance and mission has the structure.

Experience questions: customers, agents and a portfolio

These ask for proof. The job is to name one thing specific enough that someone could ask you three follow-ups about it.

Agent and LLM experience

LangChain’s Deployed Engineer form asks two separate yes-or-no questions: whether you have designed agent-based or LLM-powered applications, and whether you have built AI agents, “especially using LangChain, LangGraph, or similar frameworks”. Source 7Application formPublisherLangChain (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job posting Modal’s ML FDE form asks about hands-on Python and ML framework experience. Source 4Forward Deployed Engineer - ML @ ModalPublisherModal (Ashby)Source typecompany job posting

Answer yes only if you can describe the tools the agent called, how you checked its output, and one thing that broke. The question says “especially”, so a framework is a preference, not a condition: an agent loop you wrote yourself against a model API is still an agent you built. A weekend tutorial you followed does not, because you can’t answer the follow-up about what you would change.

Customer-facing experience

LangChain’s early-career Deployed Engineer form requires a description of your customer-facing experience, and tells new or recent graduates they may cite leadership, teaching or other people-facing experience. Source 12Application formPublisherLangChain (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job posting

A strong answer has four parts: who the customer was, what they needed that they could not say clearly, what you did, and what changed for them.

Weak: “I have strong communication skills and have worked with many stakeholders across the business.”

Stronger (a fictional example): “As a teaching assistant for an intro programming course, I ran the weekly lab for students who had never used a terminal. Their questions were rarely the real problem: ‘my code doesn’t run’ more than once meant the file was saved in the wrong folder. I rewrote the first lab’s setup guide around the mistakes I saw, and the next term the lab started on the exercise instead of on installs.”

It has a user, a translation from what they said to what they needed, and a change. Practice the spoken version with the customer-facing experience question. If you are starting from nothing that looks like a customer, what to do with no customer-facing experience goes further.

A portfolio

LangChain’s Deployed Engineer, Professional Services form in San Francisco requires a portfolio. Source 13Application formPublisherLangChain (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job posting Link two or three things, not your whole GitHub. Give each a short readme that says who it was for, the problem, the one decision you would defend, and what you would do next. A reader should get the point from the readme without running the code.

The top of a readme (a fictional example):

For: a two-person clinic’s front desk. Problem: appointment reminders were sent by hand from a spreadsheet. Decision I’d defend: SMS only, no app, because the patients already texted. Next: handle replies that reschedule.

Short prompts with a word limit

Palantir’s New Grad FDSE form asks you to tell it about a time you changed your mind about something, in 150 words at most. Source 5Apply: Forward Deployed Software Engineer, New Grad - Commercial (New York, NY) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting An xAI posting archived in December 2025, for a Government Engineering role rather than an FDE role, asked for the piece of work you are most proud of in 100 words or less, and called that Statement of Exceptional Work a key deciding factor. Source 14Member of Technical Staff - Government Engineering (archived)PublisherxAI (Greenhouse, via Wayback Machine)Source typearchived job posting

For “a time you changed your mind”, use this order: what you believed, the evidence that arrived, what you changed, and what you do differently now. The last part is the easiest to drop and the one that shows judgment.

A fictional example:

I believed our support team needed a better search tool, so I proposed rebuilding it. Before starting, I sat with two agents for an afternoon. They rarely searched at all; they asked a colleague in chat, because the articles were out of date and they knew it. A better search over stale articles would have changed nothing. I dropped the rebuild and instead added an “article is wrong” button that routed straight to the owner, with a weekly list of flagged pages. The flagged pages were fixed first, and agents started searching again. What I do differently now: I watch someone do the task before I propose a tool for it.

That fits well under the limit, and it has a belief, evidence, a decision and a lasting change. The decision you reversed and a user who changed your mind are the spoken versions of the same prompt.

To cut to the limit: delete the opening sentence that restates the question, cut adjectives before facts, keep one story, and trust a word counter, not your judgment.

Who wrote it: the AI rules for applications

  • Anthropic asks you to create your first draft yourself and then use Claude to refine it, because it wants to see your real experience. Source 1Guidance on Candidates' AI UsagePublisherAnthropicSource typecompany website
  • Snowflake says everything you submit in an application, including answers to questions and form fields, must be generated by you. It encourages AI for resume polishing, mock interviews and researching the company. Source 2AI Cheat Sheet: How (and When) to Use AI in Your Snowflake InterviewPublisherSnowflake CareersSource typecompany hiring page That guidance covers Snowflake’s hiring in general, not only FDE roles.

Our advice, whatever the rule: write the first draft yourself, from memory of the work. If a tool is allowed, use it to cut words, not add them. Keep your draft: if a recruiter or interviewer brings the answer up, you want to know exactly what you wrote. Our question on Why Anthropic? is built that way: answer as you would on the application, then defend it. In Pro, the lesson on AI rules by company and stage sets out the rule for each employer at each stage, from the application to the live rounds.

A checklist before you press submit

Before you press submit

  • I read the posting’s office days, travel and pay range before answering any yes-or-no question.
  • Every yes is one I would repeat to a recruiter.
  • The motivation answer names one thing I did, one thing the employer published, and why this role there.
  • It passes the swap test: with a competitor’s name swapped in, most sentences become false.
  • Each experience answer names one customer, user or system, and what changed for them.
  • Each short prompt tells one story, ends with what I do differently now, and fits the limit in a word counter.
  • I checked the employer’s AI rule for applications, and I wrote the first draft myself.
  • I saved a copy of every answer to reread before the recruiter screen.

Sending many and hearing nothing? Why FDE applications get rejected before an interview looks at the other causes.

Practice the answers out loud

Treat every written answer as something you may be asked to expand on out loud, so rehearse it spoken, with follow-ups, before you submit. Three of the questions linked above are free with an illustrative answer to compare yours against: why FDE and not software engineering, the decision you reversed and customer-facing experience. Every one of the 180 questions shows its framework free, and Pro, which starts with a 7-day free trial, opens the rest of the model answers. One of them is the “why this company” question for Anthropic, answered as on the application and then defended. Start the free trial.

Once your application is in, the next thing to practice is the customer round: the free practice case puts you in front of an AI customer with a vague problem to scope, and it needs a sign-in.

GlossaryForward deployed engineerA software engineer who builds and ships production systems inside a customer’s problem and environment, accountable to that customer’s outcome.More on Forward deployed engineerGlossaryForward deployed software engineerPalantir’s title for its FDE role, called Delta internally; OpenAI and EY also post FDSE titles, each with its own duties.More on Forward deployed software engineerGlossaryModel Context ProtocolAn open protocol for exposing tools and data to models through servers, so agents can call a customer’s systems in a standard way.More on Model Context ProtocolGlossaryAgentA system in which a model chooses steps and tool calls to complete a task, within limits the design sets.More on AgentGlossaryEmbeddingA vector representation of text or other data used to measure similarity of meaning.More on Embedding

Questions people ask

How long should my ‘Why Anthropic?’ answer be?

Anthropic’s FDE application form says it values this answer highly and that great answers are often 200-400 words.Source 3Forward Deployed Engineer application formPublisherAnthropic (Greenhouse job board)Source typecompany job posting

Can I use AI to write FDE application answers?

It depends on the employer. Anthropic asks you to write your first draft yourself and then use Claude to refine it. Snowflake says everything submitted in an application, including answers to questions, must be generated by you.Source 1Guidance on Candidates' AI UsagePublisherAnthropicSource typecompany websiteSource 2AI Cheat Sheet: How (and When) to Use AI in Your Snowflake InterviewPublisherSnowflake CareersSource typecompany hiring page

What if I have no customer-facing experience to describe?

Use the closest real thing. LangChain’s early-career Deployed Engineer form tells new and recent graduates they may cite leadership, teaching or other people-facing experience from internships or extracurricular activities.Source 12Application formPublisherLangChain (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job posting

Should I answer yes to an onsite or travel question if I am not sure?

Not until you have checked. Treat each yes as a commitment you will repeat to a recruiter. Read the posting’s office and travel terms first, and ask the recruiter if they are unclear. If the honest answer is yes with a condition, put the condition in the text box.

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