By FDE Interview Prep, a SourceStrongAI company

In this post10 sections
  1. The short answer: yes, at a handful of employers
  2. Who posts FDE roles for new grads right now
  3. Who says no, in writing
  4. What new-grad postings ask for
  5. How to show customer skill without a job history
  6. What the application and the early rounds ask of you
  7. A plan for the weeks before you apply
  8. Questions people ask
  9. Keep reading
  10. More from the blog

You are about to graduate, you want the job where engineers sit with customers and ship what they need, and every (FDE) posting you open seems to ask for years of customer work you do not have. Some are written for you: Palantir and C3 AI both post FDE roles for graduates finishing in December 2026 or 2027 Source 1Forward Deployed Software Engineer, New Grad - Commercial (New York, NY) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job postingSource 2Forward Deployed Engineer, New Grad 2027 | C3 AIPublisherC3 AISource typecompany job posting, and Databricks’ AI FDE posting says in writing that it is not for new grads. Source 3AI Engineer – Forward Deployed Engineering (AI FDE)PublisherDatabricks (careers site / Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting If you are still deciding whether the role fits, start with what a forward deployed engineer is, then come back here for the new-grad route.

The short answer: yes, at a handful of employers

Yes, you can be hired as an FDE straight out of school, but only by the employers that post for it. Palantir posts a New Grad (FDSE) role for people graduating in December 2026 or Spring 2027. Source 1Forward Deployed Software Engineer, New Grad - Commercial (New York, NY) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting C3 AI posts a Forward Deployed Engineer, New Grad 2027 role, open to people graduating in December 2026 or Summer/Fall 2027. Source 2Forward Deployed Engineer, New Grad 2027 | C3 AIPublisherC3 AISource typecompany job posting

So the useful question is not “does this company hire new grads?” but “is this posting written for me?”

Who posts FDE roles for new grads right now

Postings close without notice, so check each one before you apply.

EmployerLevelWho it takes
PalantirNew gradDec 2026 or Spring 2027 grads Source 1Forward Deployed Software Engineer, New Grad - Commercial (New York, NY) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting
C3 AINew gradDec 2026 or Summer/Fall 2027 grads Source 2Forward Deployed Engineer, New Grad 2027 | C3 AIPublisherC3 AISource typecompany job posting
Accenture FederalJuniorDegree or shipped projects; US citizens Source 4Junior Forward Deployed Engineer (AFS, 4715182006)PublisherAccenture Federal Services (Greenhouse job board)Source typecompany job postingSource 5Junior Forward Deployed Engineer (AFS, 4715182006)PublisherAccenture Federal Services careers (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting
EY PragueJunior, internFAAS team Source 6Junior Forward Deployed Software EngineerPublisherEY CareersSource typecompany job postingSource 7Internship - Forward Deployed Software EngineerPublisherEY CareersSource typecompany job posting
LangChainEarly career1–3 years Source 8Deployed Engineer (Early Career- SF) @ LangChainPublisherLangChain (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job postingSource 9Deployed Engineer (Early Career-NYC) @ LangChainPublisherLangChain (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job posting
SalesforceNew-grad cohortAI Builder title Source 10AI Builder, Emerging Talent - EMEA Central MarketPublisherSalesforce (Workday careers site)Source typecompany job posting

Postings with “new grad” in the title

Palantir. The New Grad posting also uses the short label “Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)” and says new grads get responsibility from the start: “You will not be handed a ticket queue.” Source 1Forward Deployed Software Engineer, New Grad - Commercial (New York, NY) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting The New York Commercial posting expects 25–50% travel, depending on team and location. Source 1Forward Deployed Software Engineer, New Grad - Commercial (New York, NY) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting The US Government new-grad posting says 25–50% travel is preferred, again varying by team and location. Source 1Forward Deployed Software Engineer, New Grad - Commercial (New York, NY) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job postingSource 11Forward Deployed Software Engineer, New Grad - US Government (Washington, D.C.)PublisherPalantir TechnologiesSource typecompany job posting

C3 AI. Its New Grad 2027 posting was first published in mid-September 2026, according to C3 AI’s job board. Source 12Greenhouse job API: Forward Deployed Engineer, New Grad 2027PublisherC3 AI (Greenhouse board c3iot)Source typecompany job postingSource 13Greenhouse job API: Senior Director, Forward Deployed Engineering, AmericasPublisherC3 AI (Greenhouse board c3iot)Source typecompany job postingSource 14Greenhouse job API: Forward Deployed Engineer (Redwood City)PublisherC3 AI (Greenhouse board c3iot)Source typecompany job posting It calls the job “a full-stack software engineering role with direct customer exposure.” Source 2Forward Deployed Engineer, New Grad 2027 | C3 AIPublisherC3 AISource typecompany job posting

Junior and early-career postings

Accenture Federal Services. Its Junior Forward Deployed Engineer posting in Arlington, Virginia requires US citizenship and the ability to obtain a federal security clearance. It accepts a bachelor’s degree or “demonstrated hands-on coding experience building and shipping software projects”, and lists travel up to 50% among its bonus qualifications. Source 4Junior Forward Deployed Engineer (AFS, 4715182006)PublisherAccenture Federal Services (Greenhouse job board)Source typecompany job postingSource 5Junior Forward Deployed Engineer (AFS, 4715182006)PublisherAccenture Federal Services careers (Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting

EY. In Prague, EY posts a Junior Forward Deployed Software Engineer role in its FAAS team, and an FDSE internship beside it. Source 6Junior Forward Deployed Software EngineerPublisherEY CareersSource typecompany job postingSource 7Internship - Forward Deployed Software EngineerPublisherEY CareersSource typecompany job posting

LangChain. These are early-career roles, not new-grad roles: both Deployed Engineer (Early Career) postings ask for 1–3 years of experience and require 40% travel. Source 8Deployed Engineer (Early Career- SF) @ LangChainPublisherLangChain (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job postingSource 9Deployed Engineer (Early Career-NYC) @ LangChainPublisherLangChain (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job posting Yet the San Francisco application speaks to graduates directly: “If you’re a new/recent grad, feel free to highlight any leadership, teaching, or other people-facing experience from internships or extracurricular activities.” Source 15Application formPublisherLangChain (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job posting

Programs under other titles

Salesforce. Its graduate route into this work is not titled FDE. It is “AI Builder, Emerging Talent”, part of the Futureforce new-grad cohort, where graduates are “embedded directly with customer-facing teams, designing, developing, and deploying Agentic solutions.” Source 10AI Builder, Emerging Talent - EMEA Central MarketPublisherSalesforce (Workday careers site)Source typecompany job posting The Munich posting asks for 25–50% travel. Source 10AI Builder, Emerging Talent - EMEA Central MarketPublisherSalesforce (Workday careers site)Source typecompany job posting In May 2026, Salesforce said the Builder program was recruiting 1,000 graduates and interns. Source 16Salesforce Commits to Hiring 1,000 AI-Native GradsPublisherSalesforce NewsroomSource typecompany blog Our free lesson on who hires FDEs and under which titles lists the other names to search.

Palantir internships. A March 2023 post on Palantir’s blog said its FDE interns generally work on-site at customer locations, solving problems with customer staff. Source 17How to Get an Internship at Palantir (Palantir Blog)PublisherPalantir BlogSource typecompany blog If you are a year or more from graduating, our post on the Palantir FDSE internship interview covers that route.

Teams that say they hire some new grads

Ramp. The Pragmatic Engineer reported, in August 2025, that Ramp prefers 5+ years of experience for Senior FDE roles but does hire some exceptional new grads as FDEs. Source 18What are Forward Deployed Engineers, and why are they so in demand?PublisherThe Pragmatic EngineerSource typenews report

Baseten. Its FDE lead writes that the team ranges “from fifteen-year industry veterans to new grads to interns through our program with the University of Waterloo.” Source 19Forward deployed engineering on the frontier of AIPublisherBasetenSource typecompany blog

How to find these postings

Search for the titles in the table (New Grad, Junior, Early Career, Deployed Engineer, AI Builder) as well as “forward deployed”. Watch the word “associate”: Salesforce’s Associate FDE posting asks for 3–7 years of experience. Source 20Missionforce - Associate Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), Public SectorPublisherSalesforce (Workday careers site)Source typecompany job posting Pay differs by employer, city, and whether the figure is base pay or ; the new-grad section of the FDE salary guide puts the posted ranges side by side.

Who says no, in writing

Databricks’ US AI FDE posting is direct: “This role is intended for experienced engineers with demonstrated industry experience designing, building, and deploying production GenAI and LLM applications at scale. It is not intended for internship, new graduate, or entry-level applicants.” Source 3AI Engineer – Forward Deployed Engineering (AI FDE)PublisherDatabricks (careers site / Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting

That line covers one posting, not the whole company. One candidate reported on Aced, in August 2026, an offer for an entry-level (L3) Databricks Forward Deployed Engineer role in the US. Source 21Databricks Forward Deployed Engineer Interview ExperiencePublisherAced (formerly Exponent)Source typecandidate’s personal write-up The candidate named the role as Forward Deployed Engineer, not AI FDE.

Two lessons follow for your search:

  • Read the requirements, not the logo. Databricks’ AI FDE posting excludes new grads, yet one candidate reported an entry-level (L3) Databricks FDE offer, so check the level on the exact posting. Source 21Databricks Forward Deployed Engineer Interview ExperiencePublisherAced (formerly Exponent)Source typecandidate’s personal write-up
  • “Early career” is not “no experience”. LangChain’s early-career postings ask for 1–3 years. Source 8Deployed Engineer (Early Career- SF) @ LangChainPublisherLangChain (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job postingSource 9Deployed Engineer (Early Career-NYC) @ LangChainPublisherLangChain (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job posting Apply anyway if you have strong internships, but know what the posting says.

Our free lesson on how to read an FDE job posting line by line turns this into a routine you can run on every posting.

What new-grad postings ask for

Put the new-grad and junior postings side by side and the same lines appear. What to prepare for each:

That last line is the hard one without a job history, and the one you can fix before you apply.

How to show customer skill without a job history

Start with what hiring teams have said in public:

So the evidence can come from anywhere people depended on you. What follows is our method for presenting it; no employer has said it uses this frame.

Proof one: a people-facing story told as customer work

Pick the time you served someone who was not an engineer: tutoring, a teaching assistant job, a campus club’s tools, a retail shift, a family business. Tell it in four beats:

  1. Who you served, by role: “the students in my section”, “the club treasurer”.
  2. What they needed, in their words, and what they actually needed once you asked.
  3. What you built or changed for them, and one tradeoff you made.
  4. What happened, with a measured result if you have one.

Here is the difference on a résumé. These lines are invented to show the shape:

  • Before: “Teaching assistant for Data Structures. Strong communication skills.”
  • After: “Teaching assistant for Data Structures. Found that most office-hours questions came from one confusing autograder message, rewrote the messages, and wrote a short guide the instructor adopted for the course.”

The second line shows discovery, a fix, and adoption. Add your real number where you have one, then compare your spoken version with the model answer to the customer-facing experience question. If this is your main gap, our post on showing customer skill with no customer job goes deeper.

Proof two: a project with a named user

A project someone outside your team used proves you can find out what a person needs and ship it. Build something small for a real user: the club treasurer’s dues tracker, a lab’s data-cleaning script, a tool for a local shop. Log what they asked for, what you built first, and what you changed after they used it; that log is your interview material. Our post on the portfolio project that gets FDE interviews walks through the build.

Proof three: the answer to “why FDE?”

Mehr also said, on the same dearCC episode, that software engineers who say they want to be closer to customers or users are a great predictor of FDE fit. Source 24What is a Forward Deployed Engineer? (FDE Explained) feat. Leo Mehr of Ramp (YouTube auto-generated English captions)PublisherdearCC (Clara Shih), YouTubeSource typerecorded talk or interview Your answer should show that pull with evidence, not claim it. Something like:

“In my TA job I liked the moment a student’s problem stopped being vague more than I liked writing the fix. I want a job where that’s the work: sit with the person, find the real problem, and ship.”

Our free lesson on the bridge story shows how to build this answer from your own history. Then be ready for the follow-up: “Why not a software engineering role?” The why FDE and not SWE question has a model answer.

Mistakes that sink new-grad applications

What the application and the early rounds ask of you

Short written prompts. Palantir’s New Grad FDSE application includes prompts such as “Tell us about a time you changed your mind about something. (150 words max)”. Source 22Apply: Forward Deployed Software Engineer, New Grad - Commercial (New York, NY) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting Treat it as a tiny story: what you believed, the evidence that changed it, and what you did differently after. An invented sample, well inside the limit:

“I believed our club’s sign-up form was failing because it was too long. When I read the drop-off data, most people quit at the payment step, not the questions. I moved payment to after sign-up, and completed sign-ups rose that term. Now I check where people leave before I decide why.”

Palantir’s published early-talent steps. Its students page lists a HackerRank coding challenge, a chat with a technical recruiter, a technical interview, a virtual onsite, a hiring manager interview and an offer. Source 26Students | Palantir Careers (timeline image: RecruitingTimeline_V3.jpg)PublisherPalantirSource typecompany hiring page The onsite is two one-hour interviews, learning and decomposition, with behavioral and technical questions. Source 26Students | Palantir Careers (timeline image: RecruitingTimeline_V3.jpg)PublisherPalantirSource typecompany hiring page The process varies depending on whether you apply for FDSE or Software Engineer. Source 26Students | Palantir Careers (timeline image: RecruitingTimeline_V3.jpg)PublisherPalantirSource typecompany hiring page

Open-ended problems, sometimes with data. Two Palantir new-grad candidates on Blind said their decomposition interview came with data: one wrote “They give a sample data set and ask how can you use this data to do something.” Source 27Palantir Learning & Decomposition Interview (Blind)PublisherBlindSource typecandidate report on BlindSource 28Update: interview experience - Palantir new grad FDSE interview (Blind)PublisherBlindSource typecandidate report on Blind One candidate who reported an L3 Databricks FDE offer on Aced wrote that they treated the interviewer “almost like a client” and clarified stakeholder, scope and KPI before touching architecture. Source 21Databricks Forward Deployed Engineer Interview ExperiencePublisherAced (formerly Exponent)Source typecandidate’s personal write-up

Thinking out loud. Palantir’s recruiting blog, in an August 2022 post with advice from its Early Talent Recruiting Team, told candidates to share questions, comments and observations so interviewers can see how they approach the problem. Source 29From Pipeline to Prospect: Insights and Advice from Palantir Recruitment (Palantir Blog; archived copy)PublisherPalantir Technologies (Palantir Blog on Medium)Source typearchived company page

The first five minutes, played through

The other Blind candidate, a new grad who did not name the role, reported 8,000 London taxi records with 8 columns and a request for a first-cut solution for drivers that could be built and deployed in a week. Source 27Palantir Learning & Decomposition Interview (Blind)PublisherBlindSource typecandidate report on BlindSource 28Update: interview experience - Palantir new grad FDSE interview (Blind)PublisherBlindSource typecandidate report on Blind Here is how our method would open it. This is our approach, not a script any interviewer uses.

  1. Clarify the decision. The user is given: drivers. So ask about their day. “Which decision in a driver’s shift are we improving: where to wait, when to stop, or which fares to take?”
  2. Check the columns. “Do we have pickup time, pickup location and fare? Is the data clean enough to rank areas, or are there gaps I should know about?”
  3. Propose a one-week first cut. “A ‘best zone to wait in for the next hour’ lookup, built from historical pickups by zone and hour. The metric is time to next fare.”
  4. Say what you are not building yet. “No live demand model, no routing, no app redesign. If the lookup cuts waiting time, those come next.”

That opening accepts the given user, checks the data first, and scopes to the week. Our free lesson on the open-ended round and the method on one page sets out the whole sequence, and the fitness-app data question gives you another prompt to run it on.

A plan for the weeks before you apply

Before you apply

  • List every new-grad, junior and early-career posting you could apply to, with its graduation window, travel line and citizenship line.
  • Drop the ones that exclude you in writing, and note the ones that ask for experience you can argue around.
  • Write your people-facing story in the four beats above, and say it aloud until it takes about a minute.
  • Build one small thing for a named user outside your team, and keep the log.
  • Rewrite your résumé bullets from adjectives into actions, using the FDE resume guide.
  • Keep up coding practice on data structures and algorithms, since the postings still ask for them.
  • Draft your “why FDE” answer and one “changed my mind” story.
  • Practice one open-ended problem aloud against someone who answers back.

Run the opening five minutes you just read against a customer who pushes back: the free practice case gives you an AI customer who answers only what you ask. It is free; you just sign in. When you want every lesson and question, Pro comes with a trial. Pro starts with a 7-day free trial.

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 engineerGlossaryOn-target earningsBase pay plus variable pay if targets are met; a posting that states pay as OTE includes incentive pay in the figure.More on On-target earnings

Questions people ask

Do forward deployed engineer jobs hire new grads?

Some do. As of September 2026, Palantir posted a New Grad Forward Deployed Software Engineer role and C3 AI posted a Forward Deployed Engineer, New Grad 2027 role. Databricks’ AI FDE posting says it is not intended for internship, new-graduate or entry-level applicants.Source 1Forward Deployed Software Engineer, New Grad - Commercial (New York, NY) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job postingSource 2Forward Deployed Engineer, New Grad 2027 | C3 AIPublisherC3 AISource typecompany job postingSource 3AI Engineer – Forward Deployed Engineering (AI FDE)PublisherDatabricks (careers site / Greenhouse)Source typecompany job posting

What if I have no customer-facing experience?

LangChain’s early-career Deployed Engineer application tells new or recent graduates they may cite leadership, teaching or other people-facing experience from internships or extracurricular activities. Tell one such experience as a story, covering who you served, what they needed, and what you built or changed for them.Source 15Application formPublisherLangChain (Ashby job board)Source typecompany job posting

Do new grad FDE roles involve travel?

Some say so in the posting. Palantir’s New Grad FDSE (Commercial) posting in New York expects 25–50% travel, depending on team and location. Read the travel line in each posting and ask the recruiter what it means for your team.Source 1Forward Deployed Software Engineer, New Grad - Commercial (New York, NY) - Palantir on LeverPublisherPalantir Technologies (Lever)Source typecompany job posting

Keep reading

Guides

Lessons

Questions

More in The FDE role