Forward Deployed Engineer

Description

The company is building the largest swarming UAV and a versatile swarming aircraft network, and is moving quickly to launch its first aircraft designed for swarming. It is also developing C2 software to coordinate swarms of thousands of mixed autonomous assets so operators can get far more out of them.

The team has founded and sold several startups, closed defense deals worth billions of dollars, and designed and built more than 30 new aircraft. Members have worked at Scaled Composites, Airbus, Archer Aviation, Blue Origin, and Boom Supersonic.

This is a forward deployed role. You will work directly with U.S. government and military customers to make the C2 systems succeed in the field, in austere places, on tight timelines, and across complex distributed systems, both at home and abroad.

This is not a pilot or flight test role. It is also not mainly hands-on hardware work such as electronics, wiring, or mechanical assembly, and it is not a traditional SRE or DevOps job with set hours and controlled environments.

It suits you if you want your code to run in demanding real-world conditions, you work well on hard integration problems without much support, you are happy being the most technical person in the room, and you keep your standards high while your schedule changes.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain the key integrations that get the C2 systems running in customer environments, from first deployment through long-term reliability on varied hardware and in different operational settings.
• Find and fix faults in distributed systems in the field by reading logs, network traffic, and performance data, resolving problems quickly and with little help.
• Work with the engineering team on core services, bringing what you learn in the field back into the product and shipping changes that matter operationally.
• Write code every day: customer-specific integrations, core service work, and monitoring and reliability tools that hold up in the field.
• Cover continuous operations, including off-hours work, on-call duty, and rotations scheduled around mission demands.
• Travel to test sites and customer locations at home and abroad, up to 60% of the time, to deploy software, troubleshoot on site, and pass hard-won requirements back to engineering.
• Work with U.S. military and government program offices, both in person and remotely, turning complex operational needs into software.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, or a related technical field.
• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience, or equivalent proven ability.
• Strong skill in at least one major language: Python, C/C++, Golang, or Java.
• Solid grasp of networking basics, including NAT, DNS/mDNS, UDP/TCP, multicast, and firewall configuration.
• Experience with Linux administration and shell scripting.
• Proven debugging ability across complex systems, including reading logs, using debuggers, and tracing problems methodically.
• Strong communication skills for working with government and military customers and internal engineers.
• Able and willing to travel 60% of the time, domestically and internationally, including to remote or restricted-access sites.
• Must be eligible to obtain and keep a U.S. Secret security clearance. An active Secret clearance is preferred but not required.
• Preferred: experience with containers (Docker, Kubernetes) and infrastructure-as-code.
• Preferred: background in distributed, real-time, or robotics software.
• Preferred: familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation.
• Preferred: experience in customer-facing engineering or technical sales engineering.
• Preferred: prior work in defense, intelligence community, or aerospace software.
• Preferred: comfort working in non-permissive or resource-constrained environments.
• ITAR requirement: to meet U.S. export rules, you must be a U.S. citizen, a lawful permanent resident, a protected individual under 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Conditions

Travel up to 60% of the time, domestic and international, to test sites and customer locations.

On-call duty, non-standard hours, and rotational coverage aligned to mission tempo.

Subject to ITAR export regulations as described in the requirements.

Requires eligibility for a U.S. Secret security clearance, which must be maintained.

Benefits

• Meaningful equity in a high-growth defense technology company.
• Competitive base salary based on experience.
• Medical, dental, vision, and 401(k).
• PTO and paid sick leave.
• Monthly wellness stipend.
• Daily catered lunch at the office.
• Paid parental leave.
• Direct impact on a critical national security mission.
• Working alongside a team of engineers and operators tackling genuinely hard problems.