[footy]

I had a (non-Palantir) job with a description similar to an FDE a decade and a half ago and we were just called "field engineers". It was a job done mostly by people in their early to mid 20s. The business function was there long before AI.

Everything old is new again, basically.

[tootie]

"Professional services" was the other common term. Most big software companies had them and/or subcontracted for them.

[skeeter2020]

Aren't "solutions engineers" the same thing? Typically smart, young people who want to get into core development, doing technical, client-facing work intended to maximize spend and stickiness? That's been a thing since forever.

[tootie]

Yeah. I've also seen Customer Success.

[suttontom]

Customer Success is not engineering, or anything close to it. It's not even really technical.

[tootie]

There are Customer Success engineers. Any of the terms in this thread were full service teams comprised of engineers, product managers, business analysts and whatever else was needed (or could be sold).