Engineering
Integrate systems and messy data. Design AI workflows, agents and evaluations. Get it to production and keep it reliable.
27–28 November 2026 | at beyond | Heidestrasse Berlin
AI needs a new kind of engineer.
Few people can make AI work inside a real company.
FDE Weekend Berlin is a learning experience for engineers and product managers with a technical background. Learn the core of the job: walk into a messy business process, find where value is lost, and ship AI that people actually use.
FRI + SATEVENING + FULL DAY
20PLACES · FIRST COHORT
PAIRSWE ASSEMBLE THEM
€149PER TICKET · ALL INCLUDED
The role
Meet the AI forward-deployed engineer
Models are becoming a commodity. The hard part is deployment: messy data, real processes, and people who have to trust the result. That takes engineering, business judgement and the ability to earn trust, in one person.
Business
Understand the process and the business model. Tell symptoms from causes. Size the opportunity and define an outcome you can measure.
Relationships
Earn trust. Listen to operators, convince decision-makers, and build with the team that has to use the result.
The weekend
One real case. One weekend.
Thousands of unresolved tickets. A queue that keeps growing, 20 more every minute.
You've been hired to assess the problem, propose a fix and prove it works. You have one day.
FRIDAY | 6PM–9.30PMMeet the room
What is an AI FDE?
A short intro to the role and how we see the market.
Icebreaker
Meet the people you'll build with on Saturday.
Food and drinks
Time with the hosts and the rest of the group.
SATURDAY | 9AM–5.45PMDo the job
Discover
Interview the stakeholders and dig through the data.
Build
A system that decides: close, reply, or hand to a human.
Prove it
Test it on held-out tickets. Measure accuracy and cost.
Board presentation
Make the case: what it's worth and what has to change.
SHOW MORE DETAILSSHOW FEWER DETAILS
FRIDAY EVENING · 6PM–9.30PM
- Welcome and intro to the event: what an AI forward-deployed engineer does, why companies need them, and who becomes one.
- How we see the market: where AI projects stall inside real companies, and why it is rarely the model.
- An icebreaker, so everyone gets to know one another and meets the people in the room before we assemble Saturday's pairs.
- Networking with the hosts and the rest of the cohort, with food and drinks included.
SATURDAY · 9AM–5.45PM
- FDE training on one real case: hands-on, with very little one-way content. You learn by doing the job.
- Systems engineering, classical and AI, about 4 hours: data, integrations, agents and evaluations, built with the coding agents you already use.
- Business, discovery and relationships, about 2 hours 45: stakeholder interviews, finding where value is lost, and sizing the opportunity.
- Three milestones through the day, with feedback from the hosts at each one, ending in a board presentation and your FDE Skool certificate.
- Food and drinks included throughout the day.
PARTICIPANTS
- 20 participants, selected from applications.
- You work in 10 pairs. We assemble them to combine engineering, business and people strengths.
- Bring your own laptop. We provide a token budget to complete the case, and the work is model-provider agnostic.
- Everything runs in English.
Who should apply
You can build. You want it to matter.
For engineers and product managers with a technical background, in and around Berlin. 20 places, selected from applications.
TechnicalYou're an engineer, or a product manager who can read and write code.
ProvenYou've shipped software, product or AI systems that people rely on.
CuriousYou want to learn how to make AI work inside a real company: the process, the economics, the people.
Hosted by
The people in the room with you.
João helps companies turn technology into better ways of operating, combining AI, product strategy and organisational change. His experience spans global transformation programmes at Shell, executive leadership at Cofidis and Banxware, and building early-stage technology businesses. Having worked inside both large organisations and small tech teams, he understands the different challenges of changing an established business and building new ones.
Diogo has led mission-critical digital projects for companies worldwide, including scaling a startup through to its acquisition. He is the co-founder of Berlin AI Day, one of Europe’s leading AI conferences. Through these, he works daily with the founders, engineers and companies shaping how AI is applied in practice, and he brings that insight directly into Naviu’s projects. He also mentors early-stage founders at Berlin Startup School and Unicorn Factory Lisbon, guiding them from idea to scalable business.
Guilherme helped build Banxware from its earliest days, growing from founding engineer to CTO and leading the engineering and data teams behind its embedded-lending platform and Amazon integration. His experience at ThoughtWorks and Finleap Connect also spans scalable systems, reliable infrastructure and improving how teams ship software. Today, he focuses on adapting engineering practices to AI, combining new tools with the architecture, testing and judgement that production systems demand.
FAQ
The practical bits
When is it?
Friday 27 November 2026, 6pm–9.30pm, then Saturday 28 November, 9am–5.45pm.
What does it cost?
€149 for this first cohort, including food, drinks and your certificate. The regular price is €349. Places are application-only, and there are 20 of them.
What language is it in?
English.
Do I need FDE experience?
No. You need real building experience and curiosity about how businesses work. Nobody is expected to be equally strong in engineering, business and people; teams are built to combine strengths.
Do I get a certificate?
Yes. Every participant receives an FDE Skool certificate.
What do I need to bring?
Your own laptop, ideally set up with the coding agents you already use. The work is model-provider agnostic, so use whichever tools you prefer. We provide a token budget to complete the case.
Are food and drinks included?
Yes, on both days. We ask about dietary needs and accessibility after you are accepted.
Tickets
Take your place.
20 places at €149. Includes food, drinks and an FDE Skool certificate.