Forward Deployed Engineer - Software Modernization (TS/SCI Clearance Required)
Vannevar Labs · Washington, United States · 3mo ago
Vannevar builds AI systems for the Department of War's most consequential missions. We have 125 deployments across every branch and combatant command spanning our core platform and five distinct products. An an example of how we work, when major combat operations started with Iran, we fielded a new product supporting 24/7 operations and 9,000+ users in three months.
How we build is our advantage: we deploy forward with the people who own the mission. Our engineers, product team, and CTO deploy forward to the point of friction, including visiting units in Ukraine. We focus on embedding directly with operational units supporting great power competition with China, combat operations with Iran, and counter-narcotics missions.
About the role
Our Mission teams operate like small startups within the Vannevar umbrella. As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) supporting software modernization for the Department of War, you will serve as the technical lead for customer engagements focused on modernizing mission-critical software systems. You will work directly with technical stakeholders across government and other defense primes supporting national security missions, owning the architecture, development, deployment, and fielding of agentic solutions tailored to real-world systems engineering challenges.
In this role, you will act as a senior technical counterpart to customer stakeholders — translating mission requirements into scalable software, navigating government technical environments, and ensuring capabilities are delivered reliably into production. You will collaborate closely with product, design, platform engineering, and mission teammates to deliver high-impact outcomes, while remaining a hands-on individual contributor.
U.S. Persons status with at least a current Top Secret US DoD or IC clearance is required. This is a customer-facing role required to be based in Washington D.C. Work will require time in secure or classified environments and frequent travel (40-50%).
What you’ll do
- Deploy, customize, and extend Vannevar's agentic software modernization platform to accelerate refactoring, architecture modernization, testing, and software delivery for mission-critical defense systems.
- Serve as the primary technical point of contact for customer stakeholders, partnering with government and industry teams to understand mission requirements and deliver technical outcomes.
- Collaborate with engineers, product teams, and mission experts to design and deliver software solutions that address complex systems engineering challenges.
- Analyze existing massive software architectures, development workflows, and technical constraints to identify modernization opportunities and guide implementation strategies.
- Develop technical recommendations, demonstrations, and modernization plans that help government program offices adopt AI-enabled software engineering capabilities.
What we’re looking for
- 5+ years of professional software engineering experience building and deploying production systems across the DoW or IC.
- Experience working directly with customers or stakeholders to translate mission requirements into technical solutions. Candidate should have strong technical communication skills and the ability to lead complex technical discussions with both engineers and senior stakeholders.
- Experience supporting modernization, integration, or sustainment efforts for large-scale software systems.
- Proficiency in one or more of TypeScript, Python, Java, C++, or similar programming languages.
- Experience with modern software development and deployment practices, including cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes, CI/CD, and DevSecOps.
- Experience operating in regulated or secure environments, including DoD Risk Management Framework (RMF) and NIST 800-53.
What we value
- Experience with Ada, CMS-2, C++, Java, or other legacy systems languages.
- Experience building, evaluating, or operating coding agents, software engineering agents, code intelligence systems, or agentic developer tools using LangGraph, OpenAI SDK, Model Context Protocol (MCP), Agent2Agent (A2A), and more.
- Experience with software architecture reviews, systems engineering, requirements management, verification, and validation.
- Prior experience working with defense primes or government program offices.
What we offer
- Health, dental, and vision insurance
- Remote friendly with WeWork access
- Unlimited PTO, shared downtime during the federal holiday calendar, and company-wide off time at the end of each year
- 401(k) match
- Lifestyle & wellbeing stipends
- Salary top-up during military reserve duty
- Fully paid parental leave
- Child and pet care reimbursement during travel
We are committed to protecting the privacy of all applicants. Official emails from the company will come from an @vannevarlabs.com domain. Under no circumstances will a legitimate representative from our company contact you to request passwords, financial information, or other sensitive personal data. Please be vigilant of potential scams.