Taiwan's TVBS spotlights FDEs: at Dcard's GNTC, a former banker works the role as AI narrows the coding gap

Taiwanese broadcaster TVBS ran a news feature on October 16 describing the Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) as a new kind of job that combines software development, systems integration and business communication, helping company departments fix workflow pain points as they bring generative AI into their work.

The report follows GNTC, the enterprise AI agent business Dcard launched in May with an FDE consulting team. GNTC FDE Joe built a flow on the company's EntryDesk platform for a Dcard advertising customer success manager who had been compiling cases from many sources into Google Sheets for client proposals: entering a client's details now pulls the needed data and publishes it as web content, skipping the slide-making step. Joe said he previously worked in banking and has no engineering background; in his view the job rests on two skills, real customer interaction to understand needs and programming, and AI has sharply narrowed the coding gap for people who deeply understand what the customer wants.

GNTC product lead Alvin cited figures he saw at a US trade show: roughly 70%+ of employees say AI helps their work, but only about 13% of organisations say it truly helps the company. He framed closing that gap as the reason GNTC was set up, and the FDE's core job as helping companies rethink existing processes around AI. A talent strategy director at an international recruiting platform added that implementation consultant roles have shifted toward incubating AI work inside companies, and that over the past two to three years the share of new roles listing AI applications or AI skills has roughly doubled, from about 16% to about 30%.

For FDE candidates, the story is a sign that the title is spreading into Asian consumer-internet companies and their spin-offs, and that some employers will consider non-engineers who can scope customer problems and ship with AI tools. The engineering-heavy postings at AI labs still ask for production code, though.