There's a particular kind of learning that only happens when you're sitting across from a customer, watching them struggle with a workflow you built, and realizing the spec was wrong.
Forward Deployed Engineering strips away the layers between builder and user. No intermediaries. No second-hand feedback. Just the raw signal of someone trying to use your work.
The 48-Hour Sprint
The constraint changes everything. When you have 48 hours to ship a working prototype, you learn to:
- Scope ruthlessly — what's the smallest thing that proves the concept?
- Build for learning, not for scale — hardcode what you need to, instrument what matters
- Communicate with artifacts — a working demo is worth a hundred slides
What Product Managers Can Steal from FDE
The biggest lesson: proximity to the problem is the most underrated product skill. The best PMs I've worked with aren't just talking to users. They're watching them work, noticing the workarounds, and feeling the friction firsthand.
Expanding this piece soon with specific examples from my work.