FDE Decomposition Case Study Simulator
The decomposition round is the part of the forward deployed engineer loop that eliminates the most strong candidates. You get a vague enterprise problem, 45 to 60 minutes, and no single correct answer — and interviewers grade how you think, not what you land on. This simulator lets you rehearse that exact pressure: pick a brief, start the clock, and work the five phases a top candidate moves through.
New to the format? Read the full FDE interview questions guide first, then come back here to practise. For the broader role, see the Forward-Deployed AI Engineer pillar.
Decomposition Round Trainer
Pick a brief, start the timer, and build the clarify-first habit interviewers reward.
Select a case to begin.
Phase 1 — Clarify
Your notes and scores never leave this device — they are stored only in your browser.
How to Get the Most From This Simulator
Treat every run like the real thing: say your reasoning out loud, because in the live round silence reads as being stuck. Resist the urge to reveal the model answer until you have written your own — the gap between the two is your prep list. Run the same brief twice a week apart and watch your clarify phase get sharper.
The phases are deliberately ordered. Spending too little time in Clarify is the single biggest cause of failure, and naming failure modes nobody asked about is the fastest way to signal seniority. When you can consistently score in the strong band across sectors, pressure-test yourself against the raw 50-question OpenAI and Palantir bank.
Once your case-study reps are solid, map them onto a transition plan with the 90-day plan to become an FDE, and benchmark the offer you are training for against the FDE salary bands.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
It is the signature round of the forward deployed engineer interview: a large, ambiguous, real-world enterprise problem with no single correct answer, given to you for 45 to 60 minutes. It carries the highest weight and the lowest pass rate of any stage, and it is graded on how you think, not on the answer you land on.
You pick an enterprise brief, start a 45 or 60 minute timer, and work through five phases: clarify, decompose, MVP, iterate and scale, and failure modes. Each phase has a place to write your answer and a reveal that shows what a strong candidate covers plus the red flag to avoid. At the end you self-score against a six-point rubric and your attempt is saved in your browser.
The most common reason is jumping to a solution before clarifying what the customer actually needs. Strong candidates ask discovery questions first, break the problem into a dependency-ordered plan, propose a deliberately small MVP, then surface failure modes unprompted. Solving for technical elegance while ignoring cost and constraints is the second-most-cited red flag.
Nothing leaves your device. Your notes and saved attempts are stored only in your own browser using local storage, and you can clear them at any time with the reset control.
A useful split for a 60 minute case is roughly ten minutes clarifying, fifteen decomposing, ten on the MVP, ten on iteration and scale, and ten on failure modes, leaving a few minutes to summarise. Spending too little time clarifying is the single biggest mistake.
The structure mirrors the decomposition format pioneered by Palantir and now used across OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and many AI startups. The briefs are representative practice scenarios rather than leaked questions, designed to build the clarify-first habit those loops reward.