happyrobot podcast breaks down the FDE motion and why it breaks at 60 engineers
ivory_tang · x · 2026-09-17
A deep-dive podcast episode on happyrobot dissecting the Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) motion: no solutions engineers, pre-sales or post-sales; the million-dollar rule of thumb; why they killed the pods; "playbooks are poison" and "let them be unicorns"; why deployments report to the CTO; faking data to customize every demo; what broke between 25 and 60 FDEs; why FDEs don't get commission; treating deployment as R&D/CAC rather than COGS; why labs spun out their deployment arms; and a quickfire on when an FDE motion is worth it.
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