Staff Forward Deployed Engineer (Federal/National Security)

TL;DR

Staff Forward Deployed Engineer (Federal/National Security) (AI-enabled systems): Building and deploying AI-enabled applications, agents, integrations, and workflow automation for federal and national-security mission workflows with an accent on secure, regulated environments and end-to-end delivery from prototype to production. Focus on translating ambiguous customer needs into technical plans, integrating with identity/data/cloud/on-prem systems, and debugging deployed systems across application, infrastructure, data, and integration layers.

Location: McLean, VA (Washington, DC / Northern Virginia preferred). Regular onsite meetings, secure-facility work, or travel may be required depending on program needs.

Salary Range: $180,000-240,000

Company

hirify.global incubates and invests in technology-led companies across healthcare, cyber, and national security.

What you will do

• Work directly with federal and national-security customers to understand mission workflows, pain points, data environments, and operational constraints.
• Build and deploy AI-enabled applications, agents, integrations, and workflow automation in secure customer environments.
• Translate customer needs into technical requirements, implementation plans, and product feedback for the core engineering team.
• Own delivery from prototype through production: architecture, backend services, APIs, integrations, observability, testing, deployment, and customer acceptance.
• Integrate with customer systems, data sources, identity providers, and cloud or on-prem infrastructure.
• Debug issues in deployed environments and drive fast resolution across application, infrastructure, data, and integration layers.

Requirements

• Strong software engineering fundamentals and ability to build production-quality systems.
• Experience with backend engineering, distributed systems, APIs, data pipelines, cloud infrastructure, or applied AI/ML systems.
• Ability to operate in ambiguous customer environments and turn unclear requirements into working software.
• Strong technical communication skills with engineers, product teams, executives, and customer stakeholders.
• Comfort working across the full stack when needed (backend services, frontend interfaces, infrastructure, integrations, deployment workflows).
• U.S. citizenship with an active security clearance (Active Secret required; candidates without active clearance may be considered if eligible and willing to obtain one).

Nice to have

• Experience with federal, defense, intelligence, or other regulated customers; Top Secret or TS/SCI clearance.
• Experience as a Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Engineer, Mission Engineer, Product Engineer, Platform Engineer, or founding/startup engineer.
• Experience with AI agents, LLM applications, workflow orchestration, evals, guardrails, retrieval systems, or model deployment.
• Experience with AWS, Azure, GCP, or government cloud environments; Kubernetes, Terraform, Docker, CI/CD, observability, and secure deployment practices.
• Familiarity with identity and access management, audit logging, data governance, and secure software delivery.

Culture & Benefits

• 100% employer-paid comprehensive health care (medical, dental, vision) for you and your family.
• Paid maternity and paternity leave for 14 weeks at employees’ normal pay.
• Unlimited PTO with management approval.
• Optional 401K, FSA, and equity incentives available.
• Opportunities for professional development and continued learning.
• Mental health benefits available through Tara Mind; cost-effective GLP-1 solutions available through Crux.

Hiring process

• Application review with eligibility and clearance considerations.
• Interviews focused on engineering fundamentals, delivery in complex environments, and secure/regulated execution.
• Final evaluation aligned to mission needs and customer-facing readiness.