Professional Diploma in
Forward Deployed AI Engineering
Programme at a Glance
What is Forward Deployed AI Engineering?
Forward Deployed AI Engineering combines AI engineering, business discovery, enterprise integration, production deployment and adoption ownership to move AI systems from problem definition into real operational use.
120 live hours of training across 24 weeks, with applied project work between sessions.
What will I build?
What a Forward Deployed Engineer does
Forward Deployed AI Engineering combines AI engineering, business discovery, enterprise integration, production deployment and adoption ownership to move AI systems from problem definition into real operational use.
The delivery lifecycle
- 01DISCOVER
Business problem discovery with stakeholders
- 02SCOPE
Value hypothesis, guardrails, success measures
- 03ARCHITECT
Solution, data and security architecture
- 04BUILD
Engineering, evaluation and iteration
- 05DEPLOY
Enterprise integration and production operations
- 06ADOPT
UAT, adoption evidence and ownership handover
This is not another Generative AI tools course: the emphasis is business problem discovery, engineering, enterprise integration, production deployment, UAT, adoption and ownership.
Weekday Cohort
- Monday – Friday
- 1 hour / day
- 5 live hours / week
- 24 weeks = 120 live hours
Weekend Cohort
- Saturday – Sunday
- 2.5 hours / day
- 5 live hours / week
- 24 weeks = 120 live hours
Who is this programme for?
Starting readiness
Python basics, Git, JSON, HTTP APIs, SQL, VS Code, Docker and structured problem solving.
Applicants may come from different academic or professional backgrounds if they demonstrate the required technical readiness.
Six-month curriculum
Six progressive months. Expand any month for detail — the outcome stays visible.
Month 1Engineering FoundationsShip a tested Python service backed by a real relational schema.
- •Python, Git and testing discipline
- •SQL, PostgreSQL and pgvector
- •AI solution selection and trade-offs
Month 2LLMs & Enterprise RAGBuild and evaluate a permission-aware retrieval system.
- •Prompt and context engineering
- •Embeddings, hybrid search, FAISS/ChromaDB
- •Evaluation harnesses and RAG security
Month 3Workflows, Agents & MCPDeliver a constrained agent with human approval gates.
- •LangChain and LangGraph state machines
- •Checkpoints and human-in-the-loop approval
- •MCP tools, memory and authorization
Month 4Enterprise ProductionRun your system as a secure, observable production service.
- •FastAPI, Pydantic, OAuth/OIDC, RBAC
- •Docker and Azure Container Apps
- •CI/CD, observability and rollback
Month 5Forward DeploymentTurn an ambiguous operational need into a scoped, piloted solution.
- •Stakeholder discovery and scoping
- •Architecture and value hypothesis
- •Pilot, UAT, adoption and handover
Month 6Domain Immersion + Project ORBITDefend an end-to-end enterprise outcome with evidence.
- •Responsible AI and India DPDP awareness
- •Domain discovery immersion
- •Project ORBIT build, UAT and viva
Project ORBIT
An evolving enterprise scenario. One defended outcome.
Example Programme Scenario
Permission-aware banking-operations knowledge assistant with approvals, integration, monitoring and adoption evidence.
Example programme scenario · Not a client project, live client engagement or placement project
Evidence Gates
Outcomes
Graduate evidence can include
Assessment weighting
Overall programme weighting. The 20% capstone weight is the programme-level share of Project ORBIT and is separate from the internal capstone rubric used to grade it.
Career pathways
Entry / Transition
- AI Implementation Associate
- Junior AI Solutions Engineer
Adjacent
- Applied AI Engineer
- GenAI Engineer
- AI Integration Engineer
Progression
- Forward Deployed AI Engineer
- AI Delivery Consultant
The realistic first role depends on prior experience, demonstrated capability and employer requirements.
No job guarantee.
Employment, designation and compensation are not guaranteed. Compensation examples are published only in the FDE Career Guide.
Credentials
Professional Diploma in Forward Deployed AI Engineering
Issuance is subject to applicable programme, attendance, assessment, examination, evidence and authorised CTDS issuing requirements.
Microsoft and IBM credentials are optional external examination pathways, separately issued by those organisations. Algo Labs does not award Microsoft or IBM certificates, and this diploma is not a government certified or government accredited diploma.