Beth Lambert

Beth Lambert

🚀 Senior Principal, AI & Data for Anthropic at Slalom | MBA • Biochemist | Creator of Safe to Scale™ | Multi-Cloud Cer… · 4d ago

Yesterday I was a Technical Architect. Today I’m an FDE. Now what? Twenty years in, I’ve seen plenty of reorgs. This one felt different. One morning you’re at the top of your game. You know the platform, you know the customers, you have a clear path to next step in your career. The next morning, an email or annual sales kick-off says your role is now Forward Deployed Engineer. The title changed overnight. Your plan didn’t. Here’s what I’ve learned: the skills didn’t disappear. Architecture judgment, customer trust, and delivery scars all transfer. What’s missing is a map. FDE work weights things differently. You ship production code inside the customer’s walls, own outcomes, and move from design to deployed in weeks, not quarters. The biggest risk isn’t the new role. It’s waiting for someone else to define it for you. So take ownership. Build your own FDE Individual Development Plan (IDP). Not a wish list, a working plan: where you are, where the role needs you to be, and how you close the gap in 30, 60, 90 to 180 days. You don’t need a big block of free time to start. You need one honest hour. Three actions this week: ▶️ Rate yourself against FDE competencies (agents, evals, AI security, rapid prototyping, production engineering). Mark each one Strong, Developing, or Gap. ▶️ Pick your top three gaps. List top three gaps, not ten. ▶️ Block two protected hours a week on your calendar to work on gaps before delivery work claims them. Your title changed overnight. Your…