Mission Delivery Engineer - Remote

Description

The company builds a platform that makes generative AI deployment straightforward. This is a forward-deployed role for U.S. federal customers, performed remotely with significant travel to customer sites, including secure locations.

You take the work from first discovery through proof-of-value (PoV) demos of custom applications on the company's platform, then into production and a successful handover to the customer or an integration partner.

The role combines building and consulting: you run discovery, show measurable value, tell a clear technical story, write working code, and then harden that code so it runs reliably in mission environments, including constrained, DDIL and air-gapped deployments. It is neither a purely presentation role nor a back-office engineering role.

Goal: speed federal adoption by turning high-value mission problems into convincing PoVs, then into production deployments and repeatable delivery patterns that cut risk, raise win rates and shorten time to mission impact.

First 180 days. Days 0-45: gain deep hands-on knowledge of the platform, build a demo and PoV environment that runs on customer laptops and in constrained settings, create a PoV-to-production starter kit, shadow priority accounts and pick 2-3 high-leverage PoV use cases. Days 46-120: lead discovery and tailored demos for priority accounts, own at least 1-2 PoVs end to end, convert at least one PoV into a production implementation or production-ready pilot, and set up a repeatable handoff with a partner or customer team. Days 121-180: build repeatable playbooks, standardize reference architectures across cloud, core data centers and edge, enable at least one partner or customer team to deploy and run a solution on its own, and feed structured field feedback into the roadmap.

The company is a small, well-funded startup. Its leadership has prior successful exits, the structure is flat, and communication is open with little bureaucracy.

Responsibilities

• Run technical discovery with DoD, IC and federal customers, covering mission workflows, data sources, operating constraints including DDIL, stakeholders and success criteria.
• Turn discovery findings into a use case definition, a solution outline and a measurable PoV plan that states what success looks like, how it is measured and which data is needed.
• Set out the PoV-to-production path early: architecture assumptions, integration points, security concerns and the conditions that must hold before go-live.
• Design and deliver tailored demos, whiteboard sessions and hands-on workshops for executive and practitioner audiences.
• Build rapid prototypes and custom applications on the platform using real or representative customer data, often on tight timelines.
• Demonstrate mission workflows such as RAG, agentic orchestration, streaming and event-driven ingestion, and edge-capable inference, matched to customer constraints.
• Add basic evaluation and guardrails to PoVs, such as grounding checks, policy constraints and transparency, to build credibility and stakeholder buy-in.
• Turn successful PoVs into production systems: harden code, modularize components, add testing and align with customer engineering standards.
• Build and maintain integrations with customer identity, data and workflow systems, including APIs, messaging and streaming, file stores and enterprise data platforms.
• Set up deployment automation and matching dev, test and prod environments using containers and modern DevOps practices such as Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, and logging and metrics.
• Drive performance, reliability and operational readiness for mission workloads, covering observability, scaling, cost versus performance tradeoffs and failure-mode planning.
• Work with a security-first mindset: data containment, least privilege, auditability and careful handling of sensitive customer information.
• Work with security and accreditation stakeholders on an RMF/ATO-ready approach, including documentation inputs, deployment patterns and control considerations.
• Keep demos, PoVs and production deployments realistic for customer environments and long-term sustainment, including classified and air-gapped settings.
• Deliver hand-off packages to customers or partners: architecture diagrams, deployment guides, runbooks, IaC and configuration artifacts, and code repositories where appropriate.
• Lead knowledge transfer and enablement sessions for customer and partner engineers, operators and sustainment teams.
• Agree acceptance criteria with stakeholders and close each engagement with documented production sign-off or a clearly agreed transition plan.
• Coordinate with systems integrators and partners to keep work continuous from PoV to production, defining roles, interfaces and escalation paths.
• Work with Sales and Capture to shape technical win strategies, handle customer objections and support bid/no-bid decisions with delivery and technical risk assessments.
• Contribute to proposals and technical responses, including architecture, integration approach, security posture and implementation plan.
• Turn structured feedback from engagements into product requirements, prioritizing gaps that affect several customers.
• Work with Engineering and Product to improve packaging, documentation, deployment automation and connectors that reduce delivery friction.

Requirements

• At least 6 years in customer-facing technical roles, such as Solutions Engineer, Sales Engineer, Solutions Architect, Forward-Deployed Engineer, Delivery Engineer or similar, supporting U.S. federal customers.
• Proven record of running full engagements: discovery, technical validation, PoV or pilot, production implementation and handover to a customer or partner.
• Comfortable working in sensitive mission contexts and communicating clearly within security and information-handling limits.
• Strong software engineering skills and the ability to build and harden applications quickly. Python is strongly preferred, along with experience with APIs, SDKs and modern web or app frameworks.
• Working knowledge of GenAI systems and LLMs, RAG and retrieval, embeddings and vector search, agentic workflows, and evaluation and guardrails.
• Experience with distributed systems concepts and integration patterns, including APIs, event-driven or streaming systems and data pipelines.
• Experience with containerized deployments and modern DevOps practices, such as Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, and logging and metrics. Infrastructure as code familiarity is a plus.
• Able to explain technical capability in terms of mission impact and customer value, for both executive and practitioner audiences.
• Strong storytelling, whiteboarding and workshop facilitation skills, with the confidence to drive technical decisions and handle objections live.
• Takes ownership and acts quickly, drives toward outcomes with little supervision, and coordinates across Sales, Product, Engineering and partners.
• U.S. citizenship required.
• Active TS/SCI clearance required.
• Able to travel frequently within the continental U.S., including to customer sites and secure locations as needed.
• Preferred: experience supporting DoD or IC deployments in classified, air-gapped or DDIL environments, plus familiarity with RMF/ATO processes and NIST 800-53 control families.
• Preferred: experience delivering production implementations with clear operational ownership, including runbooks, monitoring, incident response and sustainment handoffs.
• Preferred: experience building integrations with common federal data platforms, streaming systems and identity and access systems.
• Preferred: prior military service or direct experience supporting operational mission teams.
• Preferred: published demos, open-source contributions or earlier work building reference solutions for developer platforms.

Conditions

Remote role. Work from anywhere, with the company based in Colorado.

Expect significant travel to customer sites, including secure locations, and frequent travel within the continental U.S.

Base salary between $170,000 and $210,000, plus equity and benefits. Final pay reflects experience, impact and location.

Equal opportunity: applicants are considered without regard to protected characteristics.

Benefits

• Work on the adoption of next-generation GenAI technology across enterprises.
• Remote-first setup with the tools and support needed to work from anywhere.
• Equity in a high-potential, well-funded startup.
• Comprehensive benefits, including health coverage and remote workspace support.
• Low-deductible medical plans, flexible time off and family leave policies.