# Column is hiring an FDE: even a bank that sells APIs needs someone beside the customer

> When your product is a set of APIs, the place where customers integrate is the product. Column has just advertised for someone to stand right there.

Original: https://fdetimes.net/en/analysis/column-hiring-fde-api-bank/

A job ad posted on 6 October 2026 shows that Column, a bank that sells its services as APIs, is looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer in San Francisco. The hire will be the technical owner for strategic customers, from onboarding to launch day.

At first glance this sounds like a paradox. Column's API is described by an OpenAPI spec and comes with a sandbox: exactly the kind of product customers are supposed to handle themselves, reading the docs, calling the endpoints and getting the job done. So why put an engineer beside the customer?

The answer is worth thinking through if you are an FDE or want to become one. When the product is an API, the place where customers integrate is the product.

The person standing there, if given the authority, does more than get the customer running. They carry the points where customers stumble back into the product to fix it. That is the line between a real FDE and customer support under a new name.

## A bank for engineers, but not built from scratch

Column describes itself as the only nationally chartered bank designed to help customers build and fund new financial products. The company says it was founded by engineers to solve the very frustrations of working with existing banks.

Still, "a bank for engineers" does not mean built from the ground up. According to a law firm's wiki, the founder bought a single-branch bank in Chico, California, rather than starting another startup.

That detail matters more to an FDE than it seems. Beneath the API layer sits a real bank: Column's Solutions Engineer job ad lists regulatory and risk duties too. Whoever stands between the customer and the API therefore has to understand both the code and the constraints that a spec cannot fully spell out.

## Why good docs are still not enough

Picture a startup that wants to embed accounts and money transfers in its app. Its team reads the docs and builds the flow in the sandbox fairly quickly. Then it gets stuck on what the docs do not say: how to reconcile when a transfer is returned, how to model accounts for end customers, what has to be done before launch day.

If every question goes through a ticket, the customer's team waits for days and the bank sees ten unrelated tickets. But if ten strategic customers stumble at exactly the same point, that is not ten support cases. It is one flaw in the docs or in the API design. Only someone who follows an integration from start to finish can see that pattern.

That is why Column's ad combines two jobs in one person. The FDE works directly with partners' engineering teams to design, build and launch products, and at the same time works closely with Column's own engineers to shape the API, the docs and the developer experience.

**Key point:** When the product is a set of APIs, every customer stumble is a free bug report on the product.

## How does an FDE differ from a Solutions Engineer?

Column has no shortage of customer-facing engineers. Its Solutions Engineer role supports the technical relationship with customers across pre-sales, implementation, onboarding and support, and the ad itself says the role is more technical than is typical for the profession.

Since both roles are heavily technical, the difference is unlikely to be one of skill level. Reading the two ads closely, the difference is in the stretch they cover: the Solutions Engineer spans everything from before the sale to after-sales, while the FDE owns a narrower section, from onboarding to launch, as the technical owner, with a hand in the product itself.

Setting this ad beside independent definitions of the FDE makes clear which parts Column commits to and which you have to ask about yourself. CRV, the venture capital firm, sees writing production code in the customer's environment as the defining trait of the FDE, and holds that an FDE can span both pre-sales and post-sales while still coding.

PostHog describes the FDE as someone who embeds in the customer's team to close the gap between the product and real needs. Palantir's Forward Deployed Software Engineer ad says the engineer works with customers, often on site, to understand and solve their problems.

| FDE criterion | Source | Column's FDE job ad | Question to ask in the interview |
|---|---|---|---|
| Writes production code in the customer's environment | CRV | Designs, builds and launches with partners' engineering teams | Does the code you write live in the customer's repo or Column's? |
| Spans pre-sales and post-sales | CRV | Onboarding to launch; pre-sales belongs to the Solutions Engineer | Who hands you the customer, and from what point are you involved? |
| Closes the gap between product and need | PostHog | Shapes the API, docs and developer experience with engineering | When did customer feedback last change the API? |
| Often works on site with the customer | Palantir | Not stated in the ad | Where do you sit, and how much time do you spend with customers each week? |

The last column matters most. The job ad gives you a promise; the answers in the interview tell you whether that promise is kept.

## Read an FDE job ad like an engineer

PostHog notes that some companies use the FDE title for work closer to a sales engineer's. Two ads carrying the letters FDE therefore do not guarantee the same job, in any country.

The tell is in the verbs. When an ad says the FDE will shape the API, the docs or the platform, as Column's does, the role has a path back into the product. When an ad talks only about support and partnership, ask directly who pushed the most recent change from a customer into the product.

Another line in Column's ad is worth noting: candidates need strong project management skills, the ability to run several engagements at once and keep each one moving forward.

## Put both halves of the role on your CV

If you have ever fixed docs after seeing customers ask the same question again and again, or proposed changing an endpoint because it led integrators to guess wrong, put that at the top of your CV. For a role described like Column's, it is the closest evidence that you can turn a customer's messy problem into a concrete change to the product.

How you write it matters too. Instead of "supported customers integrating the API", write it as a chain: what problem the customer had, which part you owned through to launch, how many customers you handled in parallel, and what you brought back to the product team.

If you lack that experience, the cheapest route is to become the integrator yourself. Pick an API with a public sandbox, build a small flow, note every point where you had to guess, then turn that list into proposed fixes to the docs and the API. It is the closest thing to the daily work of an FDE at a company that sells APIs.

A good OpenAPI spec is one answer. The FDE job ad points to a second: someone standing between the customer's problem and that spec, so that over time the spec forces customers to guess less.

**Try this week:**

- Pick a payments or banking API with a public sandbox, integrate a small flow, and note every point where you had to guess because the docs said nothing.
- Rewrite that list as 3 proposed fixes to the docs or the API, each with a reason and its impact on integrators.
- Take the FDE job ad you are targeting and prepare 3 interview questions about how customer feedback has changed the product in the past.

## Sources

- [Forward Deployed Engineer Job in San Francisco, CA, Column](https://www.talentify.io/forward-deployed-engineer-san-francisco-california-us-column)

- [Column | The platform bank built for scale](https://column.com)

- [Solutions Engineer - Column | Built In San Francisco](https://www.builtinsf.com/job/customer-engineer/9602315)

- [Palantir Technologies - Forward Deployed Software Engineer - US Government](https://jobs.lever.co/palantir/ce8ca664-60dc-4f9a-8986-3c96673bcfdf)

- [Documentation | Column Docs](https://docs.column.com/)

- [Forward Deployed Engineer: When This Role Makes Sense](https://www.crv.com/content/forward-deployed-engineer)

- [WTF is a forward deployed engineer? (and why everyone is hiring them)](https://posthog.com/blog/forward-deployed-engineer.md)

- [Column N.A.: The Developer Bank for BaaS Programs](https://wiki.private.law/en/column-bank.md)