Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) Course in India

A Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) is a software engineer who builds and deploys AI solutions inside a customer's real workflows. AI Launchpad from Alumnx AI Labs is a live 6-week program for engineers with 1 to 8 years of experience who want to move into AI Forward Deployed Engineer roles. The next cohort runs from 9 November to 18 December 2026.

Cohort: 9 November to 18 December 2026 (6 weeks)

Live sessions: Monday to Friday, 9 to 10 PM IST, online

Saturday workshops: 11 AM to 1 PM IST, hands-on, attend in person or online, one per week

Daily support: TA help 11 AM to 1 PM and 5 to 7 PM IST; assessment and interview prep 7:30 to 8 PM IST

Time commitment: about 4 to 5 hours per weekday

Who it is for: engineers with 1 to 8 years of experience; no prior AI experience required

Fee: ₹11,800 incl. GST; ₹15,000 incl. GST with placement support

An FDE works directly with a customer or business team to build, deploy and maintain AI solutions in their real environment. Instead of shipping one generic product, an FDE adapts large language models, retrieval systems and agents to one organisation's data, systems and constraints.

Works with the customer to understand the problem and decide whether AI is the right tool

Builds prototypes quickly with LLM APIs, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and agents

Connects AI to the customer's existing systems, often through APIs or Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers

Evaluates quality, adds security and guardrails, and deploys to production

Takes what is learned in the field back to the core product team

Strong software engineering: APIs, debugging, deployment

Practical LLM skills: prompting, structured outputs, RAG, agents

Evaluation, observability and AI security basics

Communication: explaining trade-offs to non-engineers and scoping work with customers

Most FDEs start as software, data or AI engineers. A common route is to build and deploy real AI projects, move into an AI engineering or solutions role, and then specialise in customer-facing delivery. Read more in our guides on [how to become an AI engineer in India](/blog/how-to-become-an-ai-engineer-in-india) and [AI engineer vs data scientist vs ML engineer](/blog/ai-engineer-vs-data-scientist-vs-ml-engineer).

Each week ends with a project that mirrors a piece of FDE work, from first prototype to production.

Week 1, Generative AI & LLM Foundations: you build "The eCommerce Chatbot".

Week 2, Building AI Agents: you build "The Pet Store WhatsApp Agent".

Week 3, Agentic Applications in Production: you build "The Agentic App".

Week 4, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG): you build "The RAG Chatbot".

Week 5, Enterprise Knowledge Systems: you build "The Knowledge Base".

Week 6, Tool Integration with MCP: you build "The MCP Toolbox".

Live sessions: Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 10:00 PM IST

Assessment and interview prep: 7:30 to 8:00 PM IST

TA support: 11 AM to 1 PM and 5 to 7 PM IST

Saturday workshops: 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM IST, followed by refreshments

Standard plan (₹11,800 incl. GST): full 6-week curriculum, daily live sessions, Saturday workshops, and a capstone project with a certificate

Plan with placement support (₹15,000 incl. GST): everything above plus placement training and mock interviews

The top 10 graduates receive a personal referral from the instructor for jobs in startups and corporates

We do not guarantee a job. What you build and can explain is what helps in interviews.

AI Launchpad is taught by Vijender P, founder of Alumnx AI Labs, an IIT Guwahati alumnus with 20+ years in technology.