Design the data model for AI-agent conversation logs, for product analytics AND eval mining.
The question where data engineering meets the AI-native FDE job. Conversations, turns, LLM calls and tool calls each have their own grain, model them wrong and neither the cost dashboard nor the eval set can be built.
Updated Aug 2026 · Grounded in real Forward Deployed Engineer interview loops and written to a senior-engineer editorial bar.
The question where data engineering meets the AI-native FDE job. Conversations, turns, LLM calls and tool calls each have their own grain, model them wrong and neither the cost dashboard nor the eval set can be built.
Lead with where the obvious approach breaks, because that is the judgment they are screening for — most candidates jump straight to the happy path and lose the room.
Then walk the failure back through the pipeline in order, naming the one metric the customer's exec sponsor actually cares about before you propose the fix.
