Junior Forward Deployed Engineer

Description

The company works only for the US federal government, helping agencies run better and deliver more value for their missions and the public. Its 13,000+ people serve clients in defense, national security, public safety, civilian and military health.

It is a technology company inside a larger global organization. The team is collaborative and supports growth through hands-on work, certifications and industry training.

APX, the Advanced Partnership Accelerator, is a Center of Excellence within the Data & AI capability. Its Forward Deployed Engineer program places top technical talent directly with federal clients to speed up adoption of AI technology from Palantir, Databricks, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and other AI partners.

This is not a standard consulting role. FDEs are hands-on technical practitioners and trusted advisors who work with cutting-edge AI models in highly regulated, high-security federal settings and turn them into value for defense, intelligence, civilian and public health missions.

Responsibilities

• Federal missions cannot wait for slow development cycles, so the program relies on embedded engineers who act quickly, work independently and can draw on wider company support. As a Junior FDE you sit between engineering, product and client delivery, taking a vague client problem to a working prototype and then to production in weeks.
• Build rapid prototypes with AI tools, coding assistants and modern frameworks as part of an embedded FDE team at the client site.
• Use LLMs, coding assistants and agentic frameworks in your daily development work.
• Help integrate solutions into complex client systems, including legacy platforms and regulated data environments.
• Build applications and workflows across frontend, backend, APIs and simple data pipelines, working with structured and unstructured enterprise data.
• Implement AI patterns such as RAG, semantic search, prompt engineering and simple agent behaviors.
• Evaluate model outputs, test workflows and apply responsible AI guardrails.
• Work with senior FDEs to sharpen problem statements and turn them into technical plans.
• Run quick experiments, fold user feedback into updates, and record solution decisions and internal learning material.
• Advise clients on new AI capabilities, helping them adopt tools and widen mission impact.
• Pass field observations, user pain points and reusable assets back to APX teams to improve how they deliver.

Requirements

• You move fast because the mission cannot wait. You take ownership early, make sensible bets under uncertainty, flag risks and trade-offs, and keep momentum when the path is unclear.
• You stay steady when projects get messy, keep going through rapid experiment cycles, and act decisively with senior FDEs in client sessions.
• You iterate quickly, explain things plainly to technical and non-technical teammates, ask sharp questions, and summarize decisions so teams stay aligned.
• You learn quickly across a fast-changing field, including LLMs, agent frameworks, cloud platforms and enterprise AI, and you prefer building and testing over long specification work.
• A bachelor's degree or hands-on experience building and shipping software.
• Proficiency in at least one modern language, such as Python, R or Rust, with experience building production services.
• Familiarity with generative AI, such as LLMs, chatbots or AI-powered apps, and a willingness to learn how model outputs shape product workflows.
• Experience with APIs and simple data flows, handling structured and unstructured data and keeping data quality high.
• Ability to travel, depending on client and team needs.
• US citizenship and the ability to get a federal security clearance.
• Bonus: a degree in computer science, engineering, economics, statistics or a related technical field.
• Bonus: experience with Palantir, Databricks, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or other new tech platforms.
• Bonus: client experience or collaborative technical work, such as consulting internships, hackathons, customer success engineering or team builds.
• Bonus: exposure to AWS, Azure or GCP gained through school work, certifications, internships or side projects.
• Bonus: experience deploying code in constrained environments such as legacy systems, governance regimes or access controls.
• Bonus: a record of taking a small idea from zero to prototype on your own.
• Bonus: curiosity about how different frontier labs work and willingness to learn their platforms, such as Vertex AI, Azure OpenAI or Claude.
• Bonus: relevant Google, Anthropic or OpenAI certifications or training courses.
• Bonus: ability to travel up to 50%, based on what the business and clients need.
• Bonus: an active federal security clearance.

Conditions

Base pay range for California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and the District of Columbia: $72,600 - $132,100 USD. Ranges are shown in these locations as local law requires, and actual pay depends on office location, role, skill set and experience.

Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis with no fixed deadline.

The company is committed to a culture where everyone is respected, feels they belong and has equal opportunity.

Benefits

• A wide variety of benefits is offered.
• Opportunities to grow through hands-on experience, certifications and industry training.