01
Operating map
The workflow, actors, authority, exceptions, system boundary, and production consequence expressed as one inspectable model.
LockedIn FDE Academy
The production discipline behind the title.
Forward-deployed engineers learn to hold the entire line from field discovery through engineered system, governed release, operational evidence, and accountable transfer.
AI-native team training
Prepare the people who deliver together.
Developers, product managers, and project managers build shared AI foundations, practice their own responsibilities, and work through team assignments. The FDE Academy standard adds the field depth to carry discovery, integration, production, and transfer.
Curriculum spine
Six disciplines. One accountable delivery line.
Each module is applied to the same operating problem so technical, human, and governance decisions remain connected instead of becoming separate classroom exercises.
- 01
Field discovery and workflow mapping
- 02
Enterprise data, identity, and integration
- 03
Agent systems, context engineering, and evaluation
- 04
Security, authorization, governance, and evidence
- 05
Shadow operation, promotion, observability, and rollback
- 06
Executive communication, production acceptance, and transfer
Applied evidence
The capstone is an operating record.
The final body of work should let a reviewer follow the problem, decisions, system behavior, controls, release logic, and transfer without relying on presentation alone.
02
Engineered system
A working implementation against a synthetic or approved environment, with interfaces and behavior made explicit.
03
Evaluation set
Representative cases, failure modes, acceptance thresholds, and a repeatable way to determine whether the system is ready.
04
Control boundary
Identity, authorization, human decision points, data handling, escalation, rollback, and evidence requirements designed into the work.
05
Release record
What changed, what was tested, who accepted it, what is observable, and what would stop or reverse operation.
06
Transfer package
Runbook, ownership model, operating signals, known conditions, and the knowledge required for the receiving team to carry the system.
Development rhythm
Learn by carrying the work.
- 01
Frame
Start with a real operating problem and make the authority, workflow, interfaces, and consequence visible.
- 02
Build
Engineer the smallest complete production slice that can expose the important assumptions.
- 03
Evaluate
Test behavior, failure, controls, usefulness, and the conditions required for promotion.
- 04
Defend
Explain the architecture and decision record to technical, operating, risk, and executive reviewers.
- 05
Transfer
Leave the system, evidence, and operating knowledge in a form another accountable team can carry.
The path in
Four layers, climbed in order.
The title is in demand because one layer of it is scarce. The first two are learned at a desk. The third is learned in front of an operator, which is why the Academy is organized around real work under review rather than a course with a test at the end.
Read the field guide- 01
Software engineering
You ship production code inside a real organization and stay accountable for every change, including the ones a coding agent drafted.
Any production team. This layer is the floor and it never comes off.
- 02
AI engineering
You can choose a model, wire an agent to tools and retrieval, engineer its context, and evaluate its behavior before anyone depends on it.
Delivered projects, personal or professional, shown as working systems rather than described.
- 03
AI solutions architecture
You can run discovery against a live operation, design the evaluation set, curate the data, deploy under real controls, observe the system, and carry adoption.
In front of an operator. This is the layer the Academy exists to develop, and it is only learnable against real work.
- 04
Domain and consulting
You understand how money and risk move in one industry, and you can carry findings to the executives who signed the engagement.
Accrued inside deployments and carried forward to the next one.
Development pathways
Multiple routes into the discipline.
The Academy standard applies across experience levels and career routes. Each pathway calibrates field exposure, mentorship, evaluation, and production accountability to the work.
Experienced-engineer pathway
FDE Residency
For builders developing the field judgment, enterprise fluency, and delivery ownership required to lead complex deployments.
Student and early-career pathway
FDE Internship
For technical talent ready to learn through substantive engineering work, close mentorship, and production-grade standards.
Nontraditional-talent pathway
Engineering Apprenticeship
For builders bringing strong technical potential through project work, industry experience, or an alternative route into engineering.
Product and transformation pathway
AI Product Leadership Studio
For leaders joining product judgment, operating-model design, adoption, value, and technical delivery into one discipline.
Every Academy pathway defines its format, schedule, geography, selection process, accountable leaders, and participation terms before the work begins.
FDE talent network