Become a Forward Deployed Engineer.
A hands-on 5-weekend cohort for engineers who want to sit next to the customer, prototype in hours, and ship real AI-powered systems into production. Taught by Vinod Kumar Bhovi — founder of Databag.ai and EarthEmission, and a Microsoft Certified Trainer.
I'm Vinod — an entrepreneur, trainer and community builder working where AI meets real-world delivery.
I founded two companies — EarthEmission, using AI to measure and reduce emissions, and Databag.ai, building intelligent data tooling. Along the way I've deployed AI products into messy, real customer environments — the same work a Forward Deployed Engineer does every day.
As a Microsoft Certified Trainer, I've taught AI and technology to countless engineers, students and professionals. I also run two YouTube channels and a live podcast where I share what I learn building in public. This cohort distils all of that into 5 focused Saturdays.
Five Saturdays.
One deployable skill.
- 01SAT · SEP 5, 2026The FDE Mindset & Foundations
- 02SAT · SEP 12, 2026Rapid Prototyping with LLMs
- 03SAT · SEP 19, 2026Data, APIs & Integrations
- 04SAT · SEP 26, 2026Deploying to Production
- 05SAT · OCT 3, 2026Discovery, Delivery & Demo Day
What you'll build,
week by week.
Every Saturday combines a short teach, a live build, and a working deliverable. By the last session you have a capstone project you deployed yourself and can show to any hiring team.
The FDE Mindset & Foundations
What Forward Deployed Engineers actually do, how they operate at the seam of product and customer, and the systems-thinking toolkit for messy real-world problems.
- →The FDE role — Palantir, OpenAI & modern variants
- →Reading a customer environment in the first 30 minutes
- →Scoping the smallest useful thing to ship
- →Problem framing, hypothesis-driven work, and “no” as a tool
- →Dev environment & starter kit for the cohort
Rapid Prototyping with LLMs
Go from a customer whiteboard to a working prototype the same afternoon — the core FDE superpower.
- →Prompting patterns that survive production
- →Tool use, function calling & structured outputs
- →Agentic loops without over-engineering
- →Evaluations you can run on a Saturday
- →Live build: prototype from a blank repo → demo in 4 hours
Data, APIs & Integrations
Real customers have messy data and 12 systems. Learn to plug in, transform and expose data cleanly.
- →Modeling messy real-world schemas
- →ETL & lightweight pipelines that actually run
- →Working with REST, GraphQL, webhooks, and MCP servers
- →Auth patterns — API keys, OAuth, service principals
- →Handling PII, secrets, and customer trust
Deploying to Production
Turn the demo into something a customer can rely on — infra, security, observability, and the boring stuff that separates hobby from work.
- →Deploy targets: serverless, containers, App Service, edge
- →CI/CD you can hand back to the customer
- →Logs, metrics, tracing & useful alerts
- →Cost, rate limits & fallback strategies
- →Security review checklist for AI features
Discovery, Delivery & Demo Day
The human half of the job — running discovery, managing stakeholders, delivering under pressure, and ending with a live demo of your capstone.
- →Discovery interviews that surface the real problem
- →Roadmap in a room — the FDE facilitation kit
- →Handoff — from FDE prototype to product team
- →Your capstone demo (each participant presents)
- →Certification & next steps
Everything you need
to ship — nothing you don't.
40 hours of live teaching
Five 8-hour Saturdays with me — small group, real questions, real code, real customers-in-the-room energy.
All sessions recorded
Every Saturday is recorded and shared with you afterwards. Miss a session, rewatch a section, or come back to it after the cohort ends.
A capstone you deploy
You leave with a working AI-powered project you built, integrated with real data and shipped to a live URL — not a slide deck.
Certificate by Databag
On completion of the cohort and capstone demo, you receive a signed Forward Deployed Engineer certificate issued by Databag.ai.
Cohort channel + alumni access
Direct chat with me and the other engineers, plus ongoing access to the alumni space after the course wraps.
Invoice from training budget
Prefer to pay from your company's training budget? I issue proper invoices so your L&D or finance team can process it easily.
One flat price.
Invoice-friendly for your company.
Pay personally with card, or ask your company to cover it from the training / L&D budget — I issue a proper company invoice on request.
- ✓5 live 8-hour Saturdays (40h total)
- ✓Every session recorded, keep forever
- ✓Capstone project deployed to a live URL
- ✓Databag Forward Deployed Engineer certificate
- ✓Cohort chat + alumni access
- ✓Company invoice on request
Save your seat.
Small cohort — I keep the room tight so each participant gets real feedback on their capstone. Once seats fill, the next cohort won't run until 2027.
Fill in a 30-second registration
Tell me your name, email, role and how you'd like to pay (card or company invoice). I follow up personally within 48 hours with the payment link and calendar invites.
Register — €299 ↗Card, or company invoice
Pay by card via Stripe, or ask your employer to cover it from the training / L&D budget — I issue a proper invoice on request.
https://academy.databag.ai/register
Common questions.
Who is this cohort for?01
Intermediate engineers, tech leads and technical founders who can already ship code and now want the FDE toolkit — prototyping with LLMs, wiring up messy data, deploying to production, and running discovery with real customers.
What if I miss a Saturday?02
Every session is recorded and shared with you. You keep the recordings, so you can rewatch anything and catch up on your own time.
Can my company pay for me?03
Yes — this is the most common route. Email me with your company details and I'll send a proper invoice your L&D or finance team can process from a training budget.
What do I get at the end?04
A deployed capstone project, all the session recordings, cohort + alumni chat access, and a signed Databag Forward Deployed Engineer certificate.
What time zone do the sessions run in?05
CET (Central European Time). Each Saturday runs 09:00 – 17:00 CET with breaks. Calendar invites include auto-converted times for your local zone.
How big is the cohort?06
Deliberately small — I cap it so each participant gets real feedback on their capstone. Once the seats are full, the next cohort will not run until 2027.