For Companies · Hiring Managers · Recruiters
Stop guessing on FDE hires. Test what actually matters.
The standard FDE interview loop tests the wrong things. FDE Circle gives you a 7-phase deployment simulation and a 9-dimension evidence scorecard — submitted in 90 minutes, no interviewer required.
Get started
Sign in with your company email — no procurement, no sales call.
New here?
By continuing you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Who It's For
Built for everyone involved in FDE hiring.
Whether you're making the final call, leading the team they'd join, or building the pipeline — FDE Circle gives you a shared signal everyone can trust.
The problem: You need someone who can ship to a customer in 6 weeks. The standard interview loop can't tell you that.
What changes: A 90-minute simulation tells you exactly how a candidate performs under real deployment conditions — before they start.
The problem: Your strongest backend engineers often fail in the field. FDE skill is fundamentally different from SWE skill.
What changes: Test the actual job: discovery calls, broken integrations, ambiguous requirements. Not whiteboard algorithms.
The problem: You're qualifying candidates on calls that should have been screened automatically.
What changes: Send a scored simulation first. Every conversation you start is pre-qualified to the role. No rubric on the candidate's end.
Why This Exists
The FDE interview loop is broken — and everyone knows it.
Companies keep hiring engineers who can't do this job. Not because the engineers are bad — because the hiring signal is completely wrong.
Whiteboard coding tests the wrong skill set
Algorithms and data structures predict SWE performance. They tell you nothing about how someone debugs a broken RAG pipeline at a customer site or runs a discovery call with a non-technical Head of Operations.
References tell you personality, not field capability
A glowing reference from a past manager doesn't predict whether this person can handle a deployment going sideways in week three with an escalating customer and a technical root cause they haven't seen before.
FDE is not a variant of SWE
The skills that make someone great at building internal products — deep focus, elegant abstractions, code review instinct — are different from the skills that make someone great in the field. The job is different. The test should be too.
The Product
Two ways to hire better FDEs.
Screen your own candidates with a simulation, or access a pool of engineers who've already passed it. The signal is the same either way.
Screen your candidates
Send a unique assessment link to any candidate. They work through a 7-phase FDE simulation in their own time. You get a 9-dimension evidence scorecard on submission — no interviewer required.
Access pre-screened talent
Browse a curated pool of FDE-Ready engineers who've completed the full simulation. Every profile backed by verified dimension scores — not a CV. Filter by overall tier, domain strength, and availability.
How It Works
From link to scorecard in 90 minutes.
No coordination overhead. No interviewer scheduling. The candidate gets a link; you get an evidence report.
Create an assessment link
30 seconds. Pick the scenario track and generate a unique URL from your dashboard.
Send it to your candidate
They open the link in any browser. No FDE Circle account required. They work at their own pace within the time window.
They complete the 7-phase simulation
Customer Discovery (8 exercises) → Technical Build (broken codebase) → Integration Plan → Ambiguity → Prioritization → Business Acumen → Presentation. 90 minutes.
Review the evidence report
9-dimension scorecard appears on submission. Config checks, live query results, LLM investigation quality, and every written response — reviewable in your dashboard.
Interview with evidence
Enter every conversation knowing exactly what they can and can't do. Probe the weak dimensions. Confirm the strong ones. No guesswork.
Ready to screen your first candidate?
Free during private beta. Create an account and send your first assessment link today.