The Definitive Guide to Forward Deployed Engineering

Originally published on Next Play If you work in tech, you should learn about Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE). It’s quickly become one of the most popular roles that nearly all fast-growing AI companies are looking for…at the same time, it’s the type of role very few people and companies seem to actually understand. I designed Project Frontline at Palantir, a program that sent over 250 engineers into live customer deployments. Those engineers are now at OpenAI, xAI, Anduril, and dozens of leading companies. ...

February 5, 2026 · 27 min · Vinoo Ganesh

Rethinking Serverless: The Price of Convenience

Originally published on Sync Computing Serverless functions have had their 15 minutes of fame (and runtime). As is the case with many concepts in technology, the term Serverless is abusively vague. As such, discussing the idea of “serverless” usually invokes one of two feelings in developers. Either, it’s thought of as the catalyst for this potential incredible future, finally freeing developers from having to worry about resources or scaling concerns, or it’s thought of as the harbinger of yet another “we don’t need DevOps anymore” trend. ...

February 9, 2024 · 9 min · Vinoo Ganesh

The Efficiently Guide to Snowflake (Top Down)

Originally published on Efficiently (Substack) The majority of my career has been focused on making data systems more efficient — whether that means performance, scalability, or cost. This series aims to democratize knowledge about how to Efficiently operationalize data. TLDR 4 changes you can make right now to run Snowflake more Efficiently: File a Snowflake support ticket and request access to the GET_QUERY_STATS function ALTER WAREHOUSE <warehouseName> SET AUTO_SUSPEND = 60; For multi-cluster warehouses: ALTER WAREHOUSE <warehouseName> SET MIN_CLUSTER_COUNT = 1; ALTER WAREHOUSE <warehouseName> SET SCALING_POLICY = ECONOMY; ALTER WAREHOUSE <warehouseName> SET STATEMENT_TIMEOUT_IN_SECONDS=36000 Snowflake + Driving Snowflake optimization resembles efficient driving. There are four parallel constraints: ...

February 2, 2023 · 3 min · Vinoo Ganesh

Introducing: Efficiently

Originally published on Efficiently (Substack) My name is Vinoo and I’ll be your guide, writer, and (likely) ranter throughout this series. 0. What this is Recently, I had a friend recommend Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work. I read it over the course of a short plane ride and realized… it’s time to start showing my work. Publicly. This blog series, at its core, is a collection of things learned while building analytical tools, creating data products, and consuming data products. Mostly, it’s intended as a technical series for technical audiences, but the direction remains uncertain. ...

December 28, 2022 · 2 min · Vinoo Ganesh