Engineering Manager - Defense Physical AI

Applied Intuition•Arlington, VA

5d•Onsite

About The Position

Applied Intuition is powering the future of physical AI. Founded in 2017 and now valued at $15 billion, the Silicon Valley company is creating the digital infrastructure needed to bring intelligence to every moving machine on the planet. Applied Intuition services the automotive, defense, trucking, construction, mining and agriculture industries in three core areas: tools and infrastructure, operating systems, and autonomy. Eighteen of the top 20 global automakers, as well as the United States military and its allies, trust the company’s solutions to deliver physical intelligence. Applied Intuition is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with offices in Washington, D.C.; San Diego; Ft. Walton Beach, Florida; Ann Arbor, Michigan; London; Stuttgart; Munich; Stockholm; Bangalore; Seoul; and Tokyo. Learn more at applied.co . We are an in-office company, and our expectation is that full-time employees primarily work from their Applied Intuition office 5 days a week. However, we also recognize the importance of flexibility and trust our employees to manage their schedules responsibly. This may include occasional remote work, starting the day with morning meetings from home before heading to the office, or leaving earlier when needed to accommodate family commitments. This in-office expectation does not apply to contractor positions. As the Engineering Manager, you'll lead a team of 8-12 Forward Deployed Engineers who each operate like startup CTOs: owning end-to-end execution of high-stakes projects in small teams. Your job is to make this team scale, hiring and developing exceptional engineers, setting technical direction across engagements, and building the repeatable delivery practices that let us bring physical AI to more platforms and more customers without sacrificing quality or speed. This is a high visibility player-coach role in a significant customer-facing, mission-critical environment. You'll represent Applied Intuition with authority in front of defense and government customers, own delivery outcomes across a portfolio of concurrent programs, and serve as the escalation point when projects hit ambiguity, changing requirements, or hard technical tradeoffs. You'll be expected to stay close to the technology, reviewing architectures, pressure-testing integration approaches, and diving in when a program needs it. Fielding intelligent machines is a systems problem spanning software, hardware, and operations, and your team sits at the center of it.

Requirements

8+ years of industry experience with at least 2 years, recent technical leadership exposure.
Production grade SW experience.
Has deployed SW or HW systems to active customers (not R&D, one-off projects)
Exceptional customer-facing skills and focus on solving customer problems
A proven mentor and leader of engineering talent
Strong engineering background, preferred in fields such as Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering
Broad technical experience across software engineering, operating systems, and some hardware
Experience supporting integration and deployment of complex systems
Exceptional problem-solving skills and a proven ability to thrive and innovate independently within highly ambiguous and rapidly evolving operational environments
Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Robotics, Computer Science, or a related field
Must be a U.S. Citizen
Must hold or be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance

Responsibilities

Work directly with defense and government customers to deploy, integrate, and operationalize Applied Intuition's vehicle intelligence products in military and government environments, from defense contractors to forward operating bases
Tackle a broad range of technical challenges, including software engineering, operating system configuration, system deployment, and hardware integration
Bridge customer-built systems and Applied’s solutions to deliver tangible value
Design and implement scalable, consistent approaches for customer engagement and project execution
Develop architectural solutions that improve consistency and scalability across projects
Collaborate with internal engineering, product, and customer teams to ensure successful outcomes
Take ownership of technical outcomes and drive projects to completion, adapting to changing requirements and priorities