Taste and FDEs

I don’t do much blogging but I keep hearing people talk about taste (for instance Ana Atluru, here) and it feels relevant to my favorite role to recruit for, the forward deployed engineer (FDE). FDEs require a blend of skills that don’t fit into a simple checklist. They need to be great coders, work closely with customers, solve complex problems on the spot, and constantly adapt to changing priorities. Because of this broad scope, what often defines success in the role is less about ticking boxes and an almost indescribable sense of judgment, or… taste.

Taste here means knowing when to dive deep into technical details, when to simplify solutions, and how to balance the competing demands of engineering rigor and customer needs. It’s an instinctive judgment about what’s the right call in ambiguous, fast-moving situations.

Atluru says taste is becoming the moat startups build in a world where features and technology are easy to copy. This is especially true for unique, cross-functional roles like FDEs.

For recruiters and hiring managers, the challenge is understanding what taste looks like for your company’s version of the role and then finding candidates who align with it. I can help.