Last updated: 2026-10-09
FDE Spot ("we", "us", "our") operates the fdespot.com website and platform. [Legal entity name, registered address, and company/VAT number to be added once confirmed by product/legal, see the draft notice above.] By creating an account or purchasing access, you ("you", the "learner") agree to these Terms.
FDE Spot is an online curriculum for Forward Deployed Engineering skills: hands-on lessons, exercises, boss battles graded against a written rubric, and labs. The first lesson is free with no account required, as is one graded practice drill on the home page. Everything beyond that requires signing in, with a Google account or with any email address and a password. Modules 1-3 are free for every signed-in user. Modules 4 and up require the All-Access pass, apart from the lessons marked as free previews in each module. Founding-cohort seats granted before the cohort closed (§4) keep Modules 1-5 in full. The curriculum ships in stages: see §7 for what that means for your access.
Most of the platform requires signing in, either with a Google account or with an email address you have confirmed and a password. You're responsible for the activity on your account and for keeping your Google account or password secure. Don't share your account or misrepresent who you are.
Free access. Modules 1-3 are free for every signed-in user, along with the lessons marked as free previews in each paid module.
Founding cohort (closed 2026-09-25). The free founding cohort no longer accepts new members. Accounts that were granted a founding seat before it closed keep Modules 1-5 at no charge and receive Module 6 when it releases. Feedback is requested, not contractually required, and we will not bill you for declining to give it.
Paid access. Modules 4 and up are sold through the All-Access pass, $99/year for one learner. Teams can buy the Enterprise plan by enquiry, from $299: the seats, billing period and price are set out in a written quote before anything is charged. Enterprise is a plan, separate from Module 6 (Enterprise Delivery), which is course content. Engineers who have recently been laid off can have access at $49/year; see the pricing page. Passes already bought keep the price and terms they were bought on. All prices are in US dollars.
The All-Access pass is an annual subscription billed through Stripe's hosted checkout: we never see or store your card details. It renews automatically each year until you cancel. To cancel or ask about your billing, email hi@fdespot.com: cancellation today is handled by our team on request, not yet through a self-service portal in the app.
Standard guarantee. We offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, counted from the day you pay. Paid modules are live, so the window covers content you can actually evaluate. This is on top of, not instead of, the statutory withdrawal right described in §10 for EU consumers.
Laid-off engineers program. If you enroll at $99/yr, verify eligibility (an active LinkedIn profile showing your situation, reviewed manually), and complete the full training within 30 days, we'll refund your payment and give you a year of free access. Eligibility review is manual and may be limited by capacity: this isn't an automated or guaranteed-turnaround process.
To request either refund, email hi@fdespot.com.
FDE Spot's curriculum ships in stages as modules are completed. Modules 1-5 and the Module 7 interview loop (its lessons and mock-interview rounds) are live today; Module 6, the Module 7 full-loop boss, the capstone exam, and the credential are still being built and are not promised by any date. Holding a founding seat, or an All-Access pass, gets you every module as it releases, for as long as your access is active: it is not a promise that every module is available on day one. Planned scope, timelines, and features (including a possible future AI-proctored certification exam) may change; we'll update this page and the site before charging for anything not described here today.
Some lessons, feedback, and grading are generated or assisted by AI (including Google's Gemini). We review our curriculum content, but AI-assisted feedback on your own submissions may occasionally be wrong: treat it as a study aid, not an authoritative judgment of your professional skill.
FDE Spot is an independent platform. We build our curriculum around Google's Gemini API and general AI-engineering practice, but we are not endorsed by, certified by, or affiliated with Google. Nothing on this site is an official Google credential.
If you're buying as a consumer in the EU/EEA, you have a statutory right to withdraw from your purchase within 14 days without giving a reason. Because our content is delivered digitally and immediately, checkout asks you to expressly consent to immediate delivery and acknowledge that doing so ends this withdrawal right for that purchase: you'll see that consent step before you're taken to payment. See our Privacy Policy for how we handle your data as part of that process.
Use FDE Spot for your own learning. Don't share your account credentials, scrape or redistribute the curriculum, or use the platform to build a competing product. We may suspend accounts that abuse the service or attempt to bypass access controls.
The curriculum, exercises, and platform are our (or our licensors') intellectual property. Paying for access gives you a personal, non-transferable license to use it for your own learning: it doesn't transfer ownership or give you rights to resell or redistribute it.
FDE Spot is provided "as is." We don't guarantee any specific career or salary outcome from completing the curriculum. To the extent permitted by law, our liability to you is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before a claim arose. Nothing here limits liability that can't be limited by law (for example, for our own gross negligence, or the statutory rights described in §10).
[Governing law and venue to be confirmed once the legal entity in §1 is finalized.]
We'll update the "Last updated" date above whenever these Terms change, and post material changes visibly on the site. Continuing to use FDE Spot after a change means you accept the updated Terms.
You can stop using FDE Spot at any time; email us to close your account. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate §11 (Acceptable use). Termination doesn't retroactively void refund rights you already had under §6 or §10.
Questions about these Terms: hi@fdespot.com.