When to Hire Your First FDE | Customer Success in the AI Age - SaaStr AI University
The signals that you need an FDE now versus a solutions engineer, and the cost of making customers wait on a roadmap.
When to Hire Your First FDE - a free lesson in Customer Success in the AI Age at SaaStr AI University. The signals that you need an FDE now versus a solutions engineer, and the cost of making customers wait on a roadmap. Key takeaways: • The trigger to hire an FDE is unowned technical deployment work blocking a paying customer, not a headcount plan. • Three-plus signals (big customer stuck, core eng ignoring customer bugs) means hire now; one signal means a solutions engineer is enough. • If every account needs heavy custom work, that is a product or targeting gap, not a reason to add FDEs. Part of the free, self-paced Customer Success in the AI Age course: https://saastr.ai/university/customer-success-ai