Red Cell Partners - Forward Deployed Engineer, Federal/National Security
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, including backend services, frontend interfaces, infrastructure, integrations, and deployment workflows. • High ownership, bias for action, and ability to drive outcomes without waiting for perfect requirements. • Strong debugging instincts and ability to reason across application code, data, infrastructure, networking, and customer systems. • Interest in national-security missions and willingness to work in secure or restricted environments. • U.S. Citizen eligible for U.S. Security Secret Clearance. • Experience working with federal, defense, intelligence, or other regulated customers. • Active Secret, Top Secret, or TS/SCI clearance. • Prior 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 cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, GCP, or government cloud environments. • Experience with Kubernetes, Terraform, Docker, CI/CD, observability, and secure deployment practices. • Familiarity with identity and access management, audit logging, data governance, and secure software delivery. • Experience building in environments with compliance, security, or operational constraints. • Technical Stack • Our stack may include TypeScript, Python, Java, React, FastAPI or similar backend frameworks, Postgres, cloud infrastructure, containerized services, workflow orchestration, observability tooling, and LLM / agentic AI frameworks. We care less about exact tool familiarity and more about strong engineering judgment, adaptability, and ability to ship in complex environments. • Clearance / Eligibility • Because this role supports federal and national-security customers, U.S. citizenship is required with an active security clearance. Candidates without an active clearance may be considered if they are eligible and willing to obtain one. • Location • Washington, DC / Northern Virginia or in another area near a U.S. military concentration preferred. This role may require regular customer-facing work, including virtual and onsite meetings, secure-facility work, or travel depending on program needs (~25%).
Responsibilities
• 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, including 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. • Partner with product, engineering, security, and customer teams to ensure solutions are secure, reliable, auditable, and operationally useful. • Debug issues in deployed environments and drive fast resolution across application, infrastructure, data, and integration layers. • Contribute reusable patterns, platform improvements, and documentation back to the broader engineering organization. • Operate with strong judgment in environments involving sensitive data, government stakeholders, and mission-critical workflows.
Benefits
• This is a chance to build software that directly supports national-security missions. You will work on high-impact problems where AI, automation, and modern engineering can materially improve how mission teams operate. You will not be far removed from the user or buried in a narrow implementation lane; you will be expected to understand the mission, build the system, deploy it, and make it work in the real world. • If you want to be on the cutting edge of technology, building AI solutions for the future, and are up for a challenge, let’s talk! • Salary Range: $180,000-240,000. This represents the typical salary range for this position based on experience, skills, and other factors. • For full-time roles • Career track opportunity with potential for rapid advancement with strong performance as the firm grows • 100% employer paid, comprehensive health care including medical, dental, and vision for you and your family. • Paid maternity and paternity for 14 weeks at employees' normal pay. • Unlimited PTO, with management approval. • Opportunities for professional development and continued learning. • Optional 401K, FSA, and equity incentives available. • Mental health benefits are available through Tara Mind. • Cost effective GLP-1 solutions available through Crux.
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