AI Forward Deployed Engineer

Role: AI Forward Deployed Engineer - Defense tech Location: Washington, D.C. (Hybrid – primarily remote with travel to partner sites as needed)Compensation: $160,000 – $250,000 base, plus competitive equity and performance-based bonusesMust-have: Strong Python engineering skills with hands-on experience building and deploying LLM-powered agentic systems. No active security clearance required on day one, but candidates must be eligible for sponsorship (US Citizens or Green Card holders only – no visa sponsorship available for work authorization).Our client is a fast-growing AI data lab building the human intelligence layer for frontier AI, with a growing footprint in government and national security through forward-deployed engineering partnerships with U.S. Government agencies. This is a core team role inside a small, high-ownership group of engineers working at the intersection of frontier AI and national security, with direct access to leadership including the CEO in the final hiring stage.The RoleThis is a hands-on build-and-deploy role for someone who wants to own production-grade AI systems end to end, not maintain someone else's legacy code. You'll spend roughly 80 percent of your time deep in engineering and 20 percent working directly with strategic government partners in the field, turning mission needs into real technical systems. There's no spec waiting for you and no layers of management between you and the work. You're expected to operate independently in ambiguous, high-stakes environments and make real decisions alongside the customer.What you'll ownBuilding and deploying agentic AI systems including LLMs, multi-agent architectures, RAG, and human-in-the-loop workflows from prototype through productionWorking directly with government partners in forward-deployed environments to translate mission needs into technical systemsDesigning and maintaining large-scale data curation, evaluation, and ML infrastructure pipelinesFull lifecycle ownership across architecture, implementation, deployment, reliability, and iterationBuilding new AI systems from scratch that turn mission data and models into operational autonomyWhat you'll needUp to 10 years of experience as an IC engineer (AI/ML, solutions engineering, or software engineering)Strong Python engineering skills with proven end-to-end ownership experienceHands-on experience building and deploying LLM-powered agentic systemsExperience building or maintaining data pipelines or ML infrastructureAbility to operate independently in ambiguous, partner-facing environmentsFormal degree in a technical fieldComfort working in a customer-facing capacity, both pre and post-salesUS Citizenship or Green Card status required (no visa sponsorship for work authorization; security clearance sponsorship available)Tech stack: Python, TypeScript, LLMs, Agentic Systems, RAG, ML Infrastructure, Data Pipelines, Full Stack