Applied AI Engineers

Applied AI Engineers is a learning community run by Paden Gayle for people entering applied AI and forward deployed engineering roles, alongside practitioners developing their skills. It combines technical learning with career preparation, serving software engineers and people moving from technical program management, product management or consulting. Members have access to live Q&A, peer discussion and recruiter introductions.

Its curriculum connects AI implementation with the work of getting hired to do it. Seven technical modules cover subjects including LLM fundamentals, enterprise retrieval-augmented generation, Model Context Protocol architecture, agents and evaluation, with Python files and GitHub repositories accompanying the material. A separate career module addresses résumés, professional profiles, interviews and negotiation. Gayle also shares a weekly journal from his forward deployed engineering work, giving members an account of the job alongside the curriculum.

The community sits within Gayle’s teaching and writing about making AI work inside customer organizations. A forward deployed engineer at Notion with earlier engineering experience at Google and Bloomberg, he emphasizes discovery, customer systems and evaluation in his handbook, The Forward Deployed Engineer. His separate FDE Backbone coaching program includes community access and adds a personalized project, reviewed work and interview practice over 90 days.