FDE Dispatch: Forward Deployed Engineer degree requirements index

Files
  fde-degree-requirements-2026-10-24.json  hand classification of every
                                      degree / bachelor / master / PhD /
                                      BS / MS / BA / diploma /
                                      "or equivalent" / university /
                                      undergraduate keyword match, with
                                      denominators, stance counts, level
                                      and field splits, employer and
                                      US-location splits, noise
                                      categories, evidence tables, and a
                                      per-match classification table

Used on https://fdedispatch.com/forward-deployed-engineer-degree/

Population
  Engineer-title posting texts pulled October 25, 2026 (566 of 568
  engineer-title rows with in_page_stats = true in
  fde-postings-2026-10-24.csv; 2 had closed) and deployment-strategist
  posting texts pulled October 28, 2026 (85 texts). Combined denominator
  651. Management titles from the October 24, 2026 snapshot are not in
  this corpus. Keyword seed matches: 260 postings.

Method
  Every match was hand-classified. One stance per posting:

  required
    Degree stated as a requirement with no experience alternative in
    the education line.

  required_or_equivalent
    Degree listed under requirements, but equivalent experience,
    practical experience, or an equivalent combination of education and
    experience is accepted.

  preferred
    Degree is nice-to-have, preferred, bonus, or appears only under a
    Preferred / Nice to Have section.

  noise
    Keyword hit that is not a real education requirement: idiom ("to a
    degree", "high degree of"), university names in company boilerplate,
    MS = Microsoft SQL, BA false positives, pay-transparency education
    factors, clearance or tooling "or equivalent", lunch-stipend or
    currency equivalents, Mastery-level role language, or wording that
    says a degree does not matter.

  If a posting requires a bachelor's and prefers a master's or graduate
  degree, stance = the bachelor rule and advanced_preferred = true.

Level
  Minimum degree level that satisfies the education line when options
  are OR-ed (Bachelor's or Master's -> bachelor). highest_mentioned
  records the top credential named when that differs. Master-only or
  graduate-degree lines are level = master. Unspecified covers "degree
  in X" with no bachelor/master/PhD word.

Fields
  Named fields of study on the education line (computer science,
  engineering, math, physics, statistics, data science, business,
  other STEM, technical field, other). A posting can list several.

Silence
  Postings with no keyword match, plus keyword matches classified as
  noise only, are silent on education. Published silence share =
  (651 minus non-noise) / 651.

Caveats
  Keyword matching is approximate; hand review removes the noise listed
  above. Postings close; check the url before relying on a row. Employers
  that post only on LinkedIn, Indeed or other applicant systems are
  missing. Figures are what public postings said on the text-pull dates.
  Employer requirements can change. This dataset is not hiring advice.

Related downloads
  Full postings snapshot: fde-postings-2026-10-24.csv / .json
  Skills index (keyword CS-degree row): fde-skills-2026-10-25.json
  Certifications and clearance index: fde-certifications-2026-10-24.json

Credit
  Free to reuse with credit to FDE Dispatch and a link to the page above.