FDE @ Alpheya

Dev Kalavadiya

Forward Deployed Engineer at Alpheya — sole technical liaison for a regional bank's digital wealth platform. I architect integrations, build data pipelines, and ship AI tooling.

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About

I grew up in Fiji, earned a full scholarship to NYU Abu Dhabi (Magna Cum Laude, 3.97 GPA), and learned to ship software where stakes are real — from NBC in NYC touching systems moving $2M+ a day in bookings, to building an LMS serving 1,000+ trainees across 5 languages at Mental.

Now I'm a Forward Deployed Engineer at Alpheya — the sole technical liaison for a top-tier regional bank's digital wealth platform. I architect integration surfaces, build CDC pipelines with Python and Temporal, and ship AI-powered internal tooling that cut onboarding from weeks to minutes.

Route Fiji → Abu Dhabi → NYC → Abu Dhabi
Education NYU Abu Dhabi '24 · Magna Cum Laude
Now FDE @ Alpheya

2025 — now
Forward Deployed Engineer · Alpheya
Sole technical liaison for a regional bank’s digital wealth platform — CDC pipelines, AI tooling, integration architecture.
2024 — 2025
Full Stack Software Engineer · Mental
LMS from scratch for 1,000+ trainees, real-time payments, AI proctoring, WhatsApp support.
2023
Software Engineer Intern · NBCUniversal · NYC
GolfNow legacy-to-modern migration — booking engine processing $2M+ daily.
2020 — 2024
B.Sc. Computer Science · NYU Abu Dhabi
Magna Cum Laude · Full Tuition Scholar · 3.97 GPA.

From Fiji — island roots, global career.

Cooks to decompress (and I'm pretty good at it).

15+ countries and counting.

Active markets watcher — crypto included.

Will never turn down a chess game.

Forward Deployed Engineer

Palantir pioneered the role; now AI and fintech companies hire for it. You embed with the client, own the technical relationship end-to-end, and ship — solution architecture docs, API journey maps, CDC pipelines, AI-powered validation tools. Part integration engineer, part technical PM, part translator between business and engineering. That's what I do at Alpheya with banks across the Gulf.

What are Forward Deployed Engineers, and why are they so in demand?

A deep dive into the FDE role pioneered by Palantir, how OpenAI and Ramp structure their FDE teams, and why the role is booming in 2025.

The Pragmatic Engineer

Read

Experience

TypeScript · Python · Go · Next.js · React · Node.js · PostgreSQL · MongoDB · AWS · Temporal

Forward Deployed Engineer @ Alpheya
Sole technical liaison for a top-tier regional bank's digital wealth platform — architecting integration surfaces, building CDC pipelines, and shipping AI-powered internal tooling that cut onboarding from weeks to minutes.
Dec 2025 — Present
- Spearheaded end-to-end technical integration for a top-tier regional bank's digital wealth platform — architected the Solution Architecture Document, API journey maps across 6 integration surfaces, and alignment docs covering mobile auth, infrastructure topology, and SDK distribution, tracking P0 blockers across 3 internal teams and the client.
- Engineered a StagingDB adapter (Python, asyncpg, Temporal) implementing watermark-based CDC across 30 canonical models with parent/child workflow fan-out and batch extraction — enabling incremental nightly ingestion from the bank's PostgreSQL staging layer into TimescaleDB.
- Accelerated client data validation from days to minutes by designing an AI-powered schema gap analysis tool that maps bank data extracts against target schemas across 9 validation passes — codified as a reusable internal skill deployed across all client onboarding engagements.
Full Stack Software Engineer @ Mental
Built foodstars.ai and customer platforms from scratch — LMS, payments, AI proctoring, WhatsApp support — serving 1,000+ trainees across 5 languages at 99.9% uptime.
Jun 2024 — Dec 2025
- Architected a production-grade Learning Management System from scratch using Next.js, React, TypeScript, and Shadcn/UI, serving 1,000+ active trainees across 5 languages with RTL support.
- Designed a scalable Node.js/Express microservices backend integrating AWS (Cognito, S3, SES), MongoDB, and WebSocket connections for real-time updates, handling 10,000+ API requests daily with 99.9% uptime.
- Engineered a real-time payment system integrating Amazon Payment Services with Server-Sent Events and webhooks for 3DS authentication monitoring, achieving a 98% transaction completion rate.
Software Engineer Intern (Full Stack) @ NBCUniversal - NBC Sports Next
Delivered an end-to-end migration from legacy to modern booking engine, facilitating over $2M per day in tee time sales during peak seasons.
Jun 2023 — Aug 2023
- Delivered an end-to-end migration from a legacy system to a modern booking engine, facilitating over $2M per day in tee time sales during peak seasons.
- Migrated 2 critical endpoints using Hapi.js on a Node.js backend, implementing advanced querying and optimizing MongoDB schemas for data integrity.
- Integrated a custom design system with Material UI through reusable components, adopted across 50+ course sites and used by 15 developers, doubling design system coverage.