What does a Forward-Deployed AI Engineer actually do?
FDE Lab shows the work in public. FDE Production Reviews applies the same standard to your system. When an organization needs private definition, implementation, deployment, or delivery ownership, YakData does the work directly.
Project File 001 follows 77 Rules from consequential business decision through requirements, architecture, vertical slice, evaluation, production hardening, deployment, handoff, and improvement. You see the model, rules, deterministic controls, evidence, human review, failures, and operating decisions together.
Episode 1 publishes Wednesday, August 19, 2026. The free seven-part FDE Lab is the public proof layer of YakData Forward.
See the standard. Apply it to your work. Or hire YakData to own the production path.
Watch real production judgment applied to a real system.
Free public production proofUse the same working artifacts instead of starting from a blank page.
Reusable working assetsBring your actual work into weekly experienced external scrutiny.
Weekly live external scrutiny · Field Library includedDocument what was reviewed, what changed, and what evidence supports the system.
Reviewed does not mean passed01 · The production standard
Production AI starts with a decision that matters and ends when the system can be tested, run, recovered, and owned.
02 · Visible proof · Project File 001
77 Rules keeps the series attached to one real system: the decisions, architecture, model boundaries, failures, controls, and handoff stay visible. The case page separates what the live product proves from later client adoption and extension.
What the case exposes
A persuasive dashboard may not contain enough evidence to prove the claim. The system sometimes has to ask for context or say “insufficient evidence.”
Public product example: the same Marketing Channel Dashboard looked strong on design while integrity exposed missing comparative context, an unclear time range, and inconsistent monetary units.
Private YakData delivery
YakData defines, builds, proves, deploys, and hands over production AI, forecasting, analytics, and data systems when the work requires private data, system access, implementation, or delivery ownership.
03 · From public proof to your work
The public Lab teaches the standard. Production Reviews applies that standard to your actual system. The Field Library supplies reusable working assets and is included while a Production Reviews membership is active.
Bring one real artifact and one consequential production decision into weekly live review. Enter at the gate your work is actually in.
Follow 77 Rules through the complete job with visible decisions, architecture, failures, tests, deployment, and handoff.
Explore the FDE Lab →Requirements, architecture, vertical-slice, evaluation, failure-testing, readiness, deployment, and handoff assets. Included with active Production Reviews.
See the Field Library →A Production Review Record can show what was examined, what evidence was presented, and what changed. Reviewed does not mean passed.
A note from Stephen
I’m Stephen McDaniel. I’ve spent most of my career in the awkward space between a business problem and the system that eventually has to work. FDE Lab is where I take that work apart in public: the architecture, decisions, tests, revisions, and tradeoffs that usually disappear from a polished demo.
Sometimes the right answer is more AI. Sometimes it is a rule, a better workflow, a simpler system, or not building the thing at all. I’ll show you the evidence and tell you what I think.
Stephen McDaniel · Founder, YakData
04 · The 7-episode journey
Each episode opens on a real artifact, shows the decision at stake and what can go wrong, and closes with the next build, test, release, or handoff decision.
Define the decision, owner, scope, definition of done, and build-or-stop choice.
Proof: decision map + scope/acceptancePreview Episode 1 →Turn expertise into rules, evidence, context, workflow states, errors, and testable contracts.
Proof: rule/evidence schemaPreview Episode 2 →Design the architecture, frontend/backend contracts, constraints, observability, and overlapping work.
Proof: role/dependency graphPreview Episode 3 →Move one representative case through every critical layer before broadening the backlog.
Proof: vertical-slice architecturePreview Episode 4 →Benchmark the real task, test critical misses and false alarms, and verify human control.
Proof: benchmark + failure matrixPreview Episode 5 →Harden validation, retries, versions, regression, telemetry, deployment, and recovery.
Proof: production-readiness checklistPreview Episode 6 →Package the runbook, test evidence, recovery knowledge, extensions, metrics, and next decision.
Proof: ownership/handoff packagePreview Episode 7 →05 · Why YakData
FDE Lab comes from systems I have built through YakData. The detailed proof page shows the work, the numbers, and the boundaries around the claims.
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