Overview/Apply to build

One application. One scenario. One reply.

CM reads every application personally. Most replies inside a week. The bar is shipped production work in real stakes and clear engineering judgment, not credentials. If that sounds like you, this should take about twenty minutes.

Who you are

We will read the last twelve months of your activity. Put GitHub in the evidence link below.

What you have shipped

The bar is shipped into production, not advised on, not prototyped. Pick the system with the highest stakes you have shipped and write about it like you would to a fellow engineer.

2 to 3 short paragraphs is the right shape. Stakes and specifics over scope.

0 / 80 chars

A repo, a deployed product, a case study, a paper. A GitHub profile is ideal. Whatever shows the work most directly.

Work a scenario

The single most important field. This is the actual job in miniature: build something that holds up, make it refuse when it should, and leave the client able to run it. Show us how you think.

The brief

An LLM assistant for a bank's analysts

A European bank wants an assistant that answers its analysts' questions from a large internal research library. Two things are non-negotiable. First: it must never fabricate a citation or a number. When it is not sure, it has to say so rather than guess. Second: their own team must be able to run, monitor, and extend it after you leave. Everything runs inside their environment; no data goes out.

You have six weeks and one of their engineers assigned to you part-time.

A few tight paragraphs. Tradeoffs over checklists. Tell us what you would cut.

0 / 200 chars

How you would fit

A few quick choices. Honest answers serve us better than convenient ones.

Where is your center of gravity?
What capacity could you give an engagement?

All FDE work is contractor and per engagement. This is just how much of your week one could take.

When could you start an engagement?

Pick all that apply (at least one).

Last things

By submitting, you agree we can store your answers in our private FDE roster to review your application. We use vetted processors (Notion, Resend) to hold and route it, and we never sell it or share it for marketing. See our privacy notice.