LOCKEDIN / FORWARD-DEPLOYED ENGINEERING 101
Understand it.
Then build it.
You can be an experienced engineer and still be new to agents. Start with what each thing is and how it helps a person do useful work. Explore 64 original introductions across software, agents, cloud, security and delivery. Start here without a model key; each topic connects to deeper instruction and practice.
A place to start.
Choose a short reading route, or look up a concept below.
- 101UnderstandPlain language, visual walkthrough, vocabulary
- 102Build with guidanceOriginal lessons, examples and knowledge checks
- 103Practise and explainRunnable labs, failure cases and handover
Industry practice
Financial-services business 101
Financial-services operations moves money, maintains accounts and resolves customer requests under defined authority. Start by separating a transaction, its ledger entries and the business case being investigated.
A status word can change what a customer believes about their money. A useful FDE must preserve its meaning across the case system, ledger, agent and human review.
UNDERSTAND THE SYSTEM
Temporary credit is not a final decision
Follow a fictional U.S. consumer debit dispute. A ledger event, an investigation and a customer communication answer different questions.
Read the connections in plain English
- 01Error notice → Investigation
Preserve the customer's report without changing an allegation into a final finding.
- 02Investigation → Credit entry
The institution's authorized process may issue provisional credit during an investigation.
- 03Source records → Operations review
The handoff must reference the current case evidence.
- 04Credit entry → Operations review
The kind of credit matters; amount alone cannot establish finality.
- 05Investigation → Operations review
A final outcome must come from the authorized case process.
- 06Operations review → Status handoff
Publish only the supported internal status, once.
Check your understanding: The ledger shows a credit. Is it safe to close the dispute?
Not from that fact alone. Establish whether the credit is provisional, check the authorized case outcome and keep required investigation and communication work visible.
CONNECT IT TO WHAT YOU KNOW
Start with something familiar.
Think of a database transaction with an intermediate state: something has changed, but the overall process has not necessarily completed. In banking, the intermediate state has specific customer and legal consequences that you must learn from the business owner.
This course starts with a U.S. consumer debit-dispute handoff. It does not teach a universal rule for credit cards, lending, securities or every jurisdiction.
Words worth knowing
- Transaction
- The business event being referenced, such as a debit. A transaction reference is not a complete investigation.
- Ledger entry
- An accounting record of a change. Reconcile its type, amount and references; a model's statement is not a ledger entry.
- Dispute / error notice
- A customer's report that something is wrong. An allegation is distinct from the institution's finding.
- Provisional credit
- A temporary credit during an investigation in applicable circumstances. It does not by itself establish the final outcome.
- Final credit
- Credit recorded as final through the authorized process. Verify the case evidence and required communications rather than inferring it from a balance.
- Reconciliation
- Comparing related records and resolving discrepancies, such as a case event that has no corresponding ledger reference.
- Idempotency
- Giving the same authorized operation the same identity so an identical retry does not create a second effect. Changed content under that identity is a conflict.
- Regulation E
- U.S. rules covering specified electronic fund transfers and error resolution. Applicability, time limits and exceptions require the responsible policy owner's review.
Useful foundations
Open a definition and diagram here. Your lesson stays in place.
A role and a way of workingWhat is a forward-deployed engineer?
QUICK REFERENCE / 101
What is a forward-deployed engineer?
A forward-deployed engineer works directly with a client's team to understand a problem, build useful software and help that team use and maintain it. They combine engineering with discovery, communication and operational ownership. It is a role, not a programming language or a particular AI tool.
Knowing a framework is only part of the job. You also need to discover what matters, explain a tradeoff, test what you built and leave another engineer able to run it.
Data a program can read and checkWhat are JSON and schemas?
QUICK REFERENCE / 101
What are JSON and schemas?
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a text format for exchanging data between programs. An object pairs field names with values, like a small form with named boxes. JSON Schema describes rules for those values. Neither is an AI model, and JSON works with many programming languages.
An API response, an agent's tool arguments and a model's structured answer often arrive as JSON. Before connecting them, an FDE needs to read the fields, recognize their types and explain why readable data can still be wrong for the task.
ONE EXAMPLE / FICTIONAL CASE
Follow the connections.
An invented U.S. consumer debit dispute has a temporary credit while investigation continues. The assistant prepares an internal status handoff. It cannot turn that temporary credit into a final decision or move money.
UNDERSTAND THE SYSTEM
Temporary credit is not a final decision
Follow a fictional U.S. consumer debit dispute. A ledger event, an investigation and a customer communication answer different questions.
See what moves and why.
Read the connections in plain English
- 01Error notice → Investigation
Preserve the customer's report without changing an allegation into a final finding.
- 02Investigation → Credit entry
The institution's authorized process may issue provisional credit during an investigation.
- 03Source records → Operations review
The handoff must reference the current case evidence.
- 04Credit entry → Operations review
The kind of credit matters; amount alone cannot establish finality.
- 05Investigation → Operations review
A final outcome must come from the authorized case process.
- 06Operations review → Status handoff
Publish only the supported internal status, once.
Check your understanding: The ledger shows a credit. Is it safe to close the dispute?
Not from that fact alone. Establish whether the credit is provisional, check the authorized case outcome and keep required investigation and communication work visible.
Work through it, step by step.
Identify the product
Establish the account, payment type, jurisdiction and responsible process. Consumer debit and credit-card disputes are not one universal workflow.
What you have now: A scoped case type
Separate the records
Link the customer notice, transaction, ledger event and case outcome without collapsing them into one status.
What you have now: An evidence map
Keep authority explicit
An agent may prepare a supported summary; the institution's authorized process owns investigations, decisions, communications and money movement.
What you have now: A bounded tool contract
Prove the meaning
Reject final wording from temporary-credit evidence, recheck stale review and make an identical handoff retry produce no new note.
What you have now: A trace and saved-note evidence
Credited does not always mean resolved
Original silent explainer · Optional English captions
Read the visual transcript
- A customer reports an invented debit error. The report opens work; it is not a finding of fraud.
- The case records provisional credit while the investigation remains open. Keep both facts.
- The proposal says final credit. That wording goes beyond the case evidence.
- The meaning check withholds the proposal. Human acceptance cannot replace missing evidence of a final outcome.
- Use temporary credit recorded, review the exact source revision and save one internal handoff. A retry must not create a second note.
Financial-services handoff / CODE EVIDENCE
Does the evidence support the handoff?
Read what the source says, compare the proposed note, then predict what should be saved. Inspect the actual result from the downloadable Python lab.
Recorded Python run · Invented cases · Scratch SQLiteA plausible note makes the wrong claim
The source establishes temporary credit. The draft says final credit. A reviewer accepted that exact draft. Should it be saved?
01 / SOURCE OBSERVATION
Temporary credit
Dispute case
- Source revision
- 3
- Workspace
- training-north
02 / PROPOSED STATEMENT
“Final credit is recorded”
A draft for the receiving staff member.
final_credit_recorded03 / REVIEW CONTEXT
Accepted
Operations reviewer
- Reviewed source revision
- 3
- Review workspace
- training-north
Inspect the exact case, review and event
- Current / reviewed case
- SYNTHETIC-104 / SYNTHETIC-104
- Current / reviewed case revision
- 2 / 2
- Exact reviewed note
final_credit_recorded- Event ID
synthetic-event-7- Request kind
status_handoff
BEFORE THIS ATTEMPT
No saved notes
Make a prediction or go straight to the evidence. This practice does not record a grade.
FROM RECOGNITION TO REASONING
Keep a temporary credit separate from final resolution.
- 01
Follow the temporary-credit event in the diagram.
- 02
Run both finance reports and inspect the actual saved notes.
- 03
Explain what the authorized case source must establish before final wording is allowed.
A state contract, two reports and an unresolved-work handoff.
Compare your reasoning when you are ready
A guarded system permits the supported temporary-credit note and rejects an unsupported final-credit note. The investigation remains visible.
Keep notes in your own working copy. Moving through these cards does not record completion.
TURN THE IDEA INTO USEFUL WORK
You can now go deeper.
Temporary money movement and final business resolution are different states. Your code must preserve that distinction.
Academy lessons use your existing training access. Free guides stay open.