Forward Deployed Engineer Bootcamp
Deploy AI systems inside a customer's walls and hand them over running.
Forward Deployed Engineer Bootcamp is a 12-week live online bootcamp, taught on Zoom by one instructor at about 15 hours a week, with 6 deployed projects and a one-to-one every week. The founding price is A$200, down from A$400. Live sessions run on weekday evenings from 5:30 PM Sri Lanka and India time, with full-day sessions at weekends.
- Week 1Stakeholder Interview KitAn interview guide and notes template that turns a customer call into a list of data sources
- Weeks 1–2DiscoveryA written pilot scope and data map for a fictional customer, published as a repo
- Week 3Source ConnectorA Python script that pulls one customer table through an API into a local SQL database
- Weeks 3–4Data out and cleanA pipeline that pulls the customer's data into a clean, tested table, deployed on a schedule
- Weeks 5–6The workflowThe AI workflow running end to end on real records, deployed behind an internal URL
- Week 7Eval Set BuilderA labelled test set of fifty customer records with expected outputs, stored in the repo
- Weeks 7–8ProofAn eval suite and a one-page results report, published with the numbers
- Week 9Container Dry RunA Docker image of the workflow that runs offline with health checks and structured logs
- Weeks 9–10Inside their wallsThe system deployed in an isolated environment with monitoring and a runbook
- Weeks 11–12Handover and hiring sprintThe handover pack, and demo day in front of hiring partners
- weeks, live on Zoom
- 12
- hours a week
- 15
- projects to build
- 10
- minutes 1-1, every week
- 30
Who it is for, and what you receive.
Engineers with Python and SQL who have shipped something and want the customer-facing role that AI labs and enterprise vendors are hiring for fastest.
Comfortable in Python and SQL; you have shipped something before.
- Live on Zoom
- 4h
- Recorded lessons and exercises
- 6h
- The project
- 5h
- 1
Six deployed projects
Each graded by Nova against a published rubric and signed off by the instructor at the gate.
- 2
The recorded lessons
The track's lessons and exercises, graded line by line, open for twelve months after the cohort ends.
- 3
Live on Zoom every week
A 90-minute live code review, a 60-minute squad lab, 60 minutes of office hours, and a 30-minute 1-1 with your instructor.
- 4
Your hiring plan
Opened in week 1 and reviewed in every 1-1: target roles, the gap map, the proof list, weekly actions, an interview log, the outcome.
- 5
The record
Every grade and every project with its repository at square1ai.com/u/{handle}, and the recording of your viva, verifiable by any employer.
- 6
The certificate
A credential ID that resolves at square1ai.com/verify to the real completion.
- 7
The hiring sprint
Weeks 11 and 12: CV and portfolio from graded work, applications, mock interviews scored against the role, demo day.
- 8
Nova for twelve weeks
A tutor with every submission of yours in its memory, at 2am as well as in class.
Twelve weeks in six parts.
Each part teaches for a week, then you build and deploy a project, then a gate checks it before the next part opens. The project and its gate are the part's entry on your record.
Live time each week on Zoom: a 90-minute class where the instructor reviews real submissions, a 60-minute squad lab, 60 minutes of office hours, and your own 30-minute 1-1. Nothing is lectured live; the recorded lessons do that.
- Key skillsHow forward-deployed teams workFinding the problem worth solvingData access, security and scoping a pilotWeek 1
How forward-deployed teams work
- The FDE role at labs and vendors
- Discovery interviews and reading a data landscape
- Scoping a pilot
- The security questions a customer asks first
You build: Discovery plan and interview script
Week 2Project 1: the pilot scope
- Meridian Logistics, the fictional customer for the whole programme
- Risk registers and success metrics
You build: Pilot scope and data map, deployed as a repo
Project 1 · the gate at week 2Pilot scope
A written pilot scope and data map for a fictional customer, published as a repo
You hand in- Scope document
- Data map
- Risk register
- A success metric measurable today
- All in a repo
The gateThe scope names the data, the owner, the metric and the risk.
What you can do by week 12.
A portfolio that looks like the job: six artefacts a forward-deployed hiring manager recognises, from scope to handover, on a customer that stands in for a real one. The method as a repeatable set of documents and pipelines, and a recorded viva defending a production deployment.
- 1
Run a discovery engagement with a customer and write a pilot scope that names the data, the owner, the metric and the risk.
- 2
Extract, clean and validate customer data from CRMs, warehouses and documents into a tested, rerunnable pipeline.
- 3
Design and build an LLM workflow on the customer's own data with structured output and human review points.
- 4
Prove a system with an eval suite built from the customer's real cases, with a baseline and a cost and latency budget.
- 5
Deploy inside a customer's cloud with secrets, permissions, audit logs, monitoring and a runbook.
- 6
Hand a system over so the customer's team runs it without you.
No placement rate is shown, because there are no graduates to count yet. The roles above are what the projects are built for.
Your record at week 12.
Every exercise and project is graded by Nova against a rubric you can read, and every grade is kept on one page an employer can open and run. This is what the programme writes to it.
- Graded, line by line
- Nova reads every submission against the brief and the rubric and returns a score, what you did well and what to fix.
- Six gates
- A block does not open until the previous project passes its gate. You always know where you are and what is next.
- A weekly 1-1
- Thirty minutes with your instructor, who has already read your code before the call.
- One page an employer can run
- Every grade, project and the viva recording at /verify. An employer opens it, runs the code and watches you defend it.
- Week 2Graded, gate signed
Pilot scope
The scope names the data, the owner, the metric and the risk
- Week 4Graded, gate signed
Data pipeline
The pipeline reruns idempotently and its tests pass
- Week 6Graded, gate signed
The workflow
Every output carries its evidence and a reviewer can override it
- Week 8Graded, gate signed
Proof
The eval covers the cases the customer cares about, with a baseline
The entries, not the grades: those are yours to earn. The page lives at /verify and an employer needs no account to open it.
8 entries, twelve weeks. Reserving a spot holds the founding price.
Reserve a seatHow we help you find a job.
The last block is not curriculum. It is the hiring sprint, and the proof you built in the ten weeks before it.
The whole plan on a few pages: the parts, the projects, the gates and the price. We email it to you.
Get the booklet- 1
Your hiring plan, from week 1
Six parts you and your instructor keep: target roles, the gap map from real postings, the proof to send, weekly actions, an interview log, the outcome. Read before every 1-1.
- 2
The hiring sprint
Weeks 11 and 12: CV, portfolio, applications, mock interviews, and demo day in front of hiring partners.
- 3
A record an employer can run
Your deployed projects and the recorded viva on /verify. An employer opens it, runs the code and watches you defend it.
- 4
The career agent
Paste a real job posting at /career and it maps the role to your graded work and what to do next.
- 5
The roles directory
Every role we prepare people for, what it pays and what it asks, at /roles.
Questions people ask.
About Forward Deployed Engineer Bootcamp, answered from the plan on this page.
- What does a forward deployed engineer do, and how do you become one?
- Is a 12-week AI bootcamp enough to change careers?
- Can you get an AI engineering job in Australia without a computer science degree?
- How do you build an AI portfolio that hiring managers actually read?
- LLM Evals and Reliability Bootcamp · 12-week live bootcamp
- Prompt Engineering for Developers · 8 h on demand
- Evaluating AI Systems · 7 h on demand
One cohort, one instructor. Hold your spot.
A cohort of 25, one instructor, 12 weeks, six things you ship. Spot holders hear the start date first, and nothing is charged before you confirm.
- Six deployed systems in a portfolio an employer can open and run
- A recorded viva defending a production deployment
- The forward-deployed method: discovery to handover, with the artefacts for each step
- Your record on /verify, every grade kept
About a minute. No account, no card, and nothing is charged until you confirm.