Forward Deployed Engineer (AI)

TL;DR

Forward Deployed Engineer (AI/AWS): Designing and deploying secure, scalable cloud-based data lakehouse solutions for government customers with an accent on ETL/ELT pipelines and federated cloud architectures. Focus on optimizing petabyte-scale workloads, implementing FedRAMP/FISMA controls, and bridging SaaS offerings with secure government environments.

Location: Hybrid (Washington DC). Active TS/SCI clearance required. Must align with US-Eastern timezone.

Salary: $200,000 - $260,000

Company

hirify.global provides AI-powered intelligence solutions to help public and private sector agencies investigate and disrupt financial crime.

What you will do

• Design and deploy secure, scalable AWS cloud-based data lakehouse solutions using S3, EMR/EKS, Iceberg, or Delta Lake.
• Develop and optimize production-ready ETL/ELT pipelines using Python, Apache Airflow, Spark, and SQL for petabyte-scale workloads.
• Containerize services on Kubernetes (EKS) and manage infrastructure as code via Terraform or CloudFormation.
• Build integrations for data ingestion from message buses, APIs, and relational databases to enable real-time analytics.
• Execute all SDLC phases, from requirements gathering and architecture to testing and secure deployment.
• Implement observability solutions (Prometheus, Datadog, NewRelic) to maintain SLAs and support mission-critical production systems.

Requirements

• 4+ years of experience building and deploying data pipelines in Python.
• Expertise in Apache Airflow (DAGs, scheduler tuning) and Apache Spark (SQL, DataFrames).
• Strong SQL skills with experience in window functions, CTEs, and large dataset optimization.
• Professional experience with AWS (S3, EMR, EKS, IAM, Redshift) and Kubernetes.
• Active TS/SCI clearance required (Polygraph strongly preferred).
• Willingness and ability to travel up to 25% to client sites.

Culture & Benefits

• High-velocity, high-ownership environment prioritizing speed, experimentation, and impact.
• Distributed-first company culture with regional hubs.
• Eligibility to participate in the company equity plan.
• AI fluency is a baseline expectation; the company encourages using AI to accelerate professional craft.
• Mission-driven work at the intersection of AI, national security, and crime fighting.