Forward Deployed Engineer, Federal/National Security

Red Cell Partners

22d • $180,000 - $240,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Red Cell Partners is seeking Forward Deployed Engineers to join a new Stealth National Security incubation. This role involves working directly with federal and national-security customers at the intersection of software engineering, customer delivery, product development, and mission execution. As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), you will embed with customer teams to understand operational workflows, identify high-value use cases, and build production-ready systems to solve real mission problems. The position requires rapid iteration from discovery to prototype to deployment while maintaining engineering discipline for secure and regulated environments. This is a hands-on role requiring coding, debugging, working with complex customer environments, translating vague requirements into technical plans, and clear communication with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

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.

Nice To Haves

• 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.

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

• 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.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed