Forward Deployed Team Leads are senior tech leads who own a federal customer end-to-end. You'll combine strong technical architecture, hands-on coding, product ownership, project management, and stakeholder communication — embedding directly with civilian agency and Department of War (DoW) / DoD customers to take our product from "design" to "in production."
You'll own one account at a time: scope the workflow with operators, design the architecture, write the code that closes the gaps, drive ATO / cATO, and deploy into the environments the mission actually runs on — including high-side.
This role requires US Citizenship. Active Department of Defense (DoD) security clearance (Secret or higher) is preferred .
- Technical architecture. Own data flow, integration topology, identity model, and deployment topology across IL boundaries.
- Hands-on coding. Write production code yourself — backend services, data pipelines, APIs, integrations.
- Product ownership. Own the deployment's roadmap. Execute on the Statement of work. Decide what's in scope, what's a one-off, and what should become product.
- Project management. Own the plan, milestones, risks, and dependencies. When something slips, know first and flag first.
- Stakeholder communication. Run customer working sessions, brief program offices, and write clean status updates senior stakeholders will actually read.
- Ship into production, including high-side. Deploy across IL2 → IL5 → IL6 as the mission requires. Work hands-on inside SIPR/JWICS and air-gapped networks. Land workloads on Advana and other CDAO-managed environments.
- Drive ATO / cATO. Partner with security, ISSMs, and AOs to get authorization. Own the SSPs, POA&Ms, and accreditation artifacts.
- Bridge field back to product. Push field learnings into the core platform so the next deployment is faster.
- 6+ years shipping production software, with 2+ years as a tech lead.
- Strong proficiency in Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, Java, Go, or C++.
- Demonstrated ownership of systems taken from zero to production.
- Prior delivery into a U.S. federal customer (civilian and/or DoW/DoD). Working knowledge of PMOs, ATOs, AOs, ISSMs, RMF, FedRAMP, and contract vehicles.
- Hands-on deployment experience inside accredited environments — IL5 minimum; IL6 / SIPR / JWICS preferred. Familiarity with Advana, cATO, and CDAO-managed environments is a strong plus.
- U.S. citizen, Active TS/SCI strongly preferred or willing to pursue a security clearance.
- Prior tech lead or staff engineer role at a federal-focused software vendor or service software factory (Kessel Run, Kobayashi Maru, Platform One, Army Software Factory, etc.).
- Experience with AWS GovCloud / C2S, Azure Government / Government Secret, or other accredited cloud environments.
- Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD into disconnected environments, data engineering at scale.
Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States without the need for current or future company sponsorship .