Forward Deployed Engineer
Industry: Defense robotics / autonomous ground systems
Company: Venture-backed defense robotics company building autonomous ground vehicle platforms for U.S. and allied customers. East Coast HQ, with additional test ranges in the Mountain West and Appalachia.
Location: East Coast HQ strongly preferred. Mountain West and Appalachian test sites also workable. Remote considered for an exceptional candidate, with the understanding that ramp will pull you into HQ frequently.
Compensation: $120,000–$180,000 base, plus equity for every employee. Bonuses are typically paid in equity rather than cash. Additional hazard pay applies for deployments to high-risk zones.
Travel: ~75% today, with the goal of reducing it as the team scales.
About the Client
A venture-backed robotics company building autonomous ground vehicle systems for defense customers. The product is a full stack: autonomy software, operator-control interfaces, and integrated mission payloads, riding on hardware they design and build. Programs are moving out of the lab and into operator hands quickly, which is exactly where this role lives.
About the Role
Forward Deployed Engineers are the company's tip of the spear in the field. You are the technical operator who shows up with the system, gets it working in conditions the manuals don't cover, and keeps customers productive while the technology underneath you is still evolving on a developmental cadence. This is closer to a Palantir-style FDE than a traditional field service rep. You are not a maintainer running checklists. You are a generalist engineer who happens to do the work in the dirt.
The customers you'll support are unusually willing to adopt new capabilities the moment they ship, so the loop between what engineering builds and what the operator uses is short, and you sit in the middle of it.
Responsibilities
- Deploy with integrated robotic ground systems to customer test sites, training centers, and forward operating locations.
- Troubleshoot across the full stack: vehicle hardware, autonomy software, networking, comms, and operator-control software. When a system fails, you are the person who decides on the spot whether it's hardware, network, or software, and fixes it.
- Pull logs from the command line, reproduce issues, and feed clean diagnostics back to engineering so problems get fixed once, not over and over.
- Spot the next problem before the customer does. Solve it. Document it so it doesn't recur.
- Train and support customer operators on new capabilities as they ship.
- Build trust with units in the field. The role is as much about being the kind of person customers want around as it is about technical chops.
Where you'll go
- Stateside training and test sites: Fort Drum, Fort Bragg, Fort Polk, NTC / Fort Irwin, 29 Palms, Camp Lejeune, White Sands, Aberdeen, Grayling (MI), among others.
- Forward deployed: active overseas program supporting an allied partner with system upgrades, repairs, and field maintenance. This is currently the highest-priority deployment need. Personnel operate behind the front, not on it.
Where you'll be based
The East Coast HQ is the engineering center of gravity and the strong preference. That is where the vehicles are built and where most engineers sit. Additional acceptable locations are the company's Mountain West and Appalachian test ranges. Other company sites exist but lack the hardware on-site that this role needs for ramp, so they are not options for this seat.
Requirements
Must-Haves
- Engineering depth. A real engineering background applied to hardware-software systems. Comfortable opening up a vehicle, tracing a signal, and also dropping into a CLI to read logs. You do not need to write production code, but you need to operate well above a typical field service rep.
- The right technical stack. Strong signals are C, C++, embedded systems, Linux at the system level, hardware integration, and any robotics / autonomy / unmanned-systems exposure. Python is useful but not the differentiator.
- Genuine appetite for travel. ~75% on the road, including extended stays at military training sites and forward deployments. Candidates who want 10–20% travel are not a fit, no matter how strong the resume.
- Comfort with Type 2 fun. Cold, wet, muddy days kneeling next to a vehicle in the rain are a normal part of the job.
- Mission orientation. You care about the user and the outcome, and that shows up in how you work with customers when conditions are bad and timelines are tight.
- Bias to action. Top performers learn the system, the mission, and the user, then start surfacing and solving problems on their own.
Nice-to-Haves
- Prior experience as a forward deployed engineer at a software-forward defense or dual-use company.
- Time inside government innovation organizations (DEVCOM elements, DIU, service-level innovation offices) where you supported emerging tech in operational hands.
- Background as a highly skilled field service engineer who built software, networking, and embedded depth on top of maintenance fundamentals.
- Military background. A positive signal for mission and user fluency in the field, but not required. Strong non-veteran candidates with deep engineering and field experience are equally welcome.
Compensation & Benefits
- Base: $120,000–$180,000, with the top of the band reserved for candidates who combine embedded-systems engineering depth, prior field engineering experience, and military background.
- Equity for every employee, top to bottom. New-hire grants vest over 4 years.
- Year-end bonuses are typically structured as equity (with a 1-year vest) rather than cash, so total comp upside is tied directly to company performance.
- Hazard pay for deployments to high-risk zones: $150 / day on the ground, $750 bonus at 3 consecutive weeks, $250 / additional week thereafter. Applies company-wide.
What success looks like at six months
You have learned the system, the mission, and the user. Customers in the field ask for you by name. You are catching problems before they become incidents, fixing them in place, and pushing clean signal back to engineering so the next release closes the loop. The running joke when describing this role is "we just want another one of those guys." You are one of those guys.
Where this role does not fit
To save everyone time, candidates whose center of gravity is one of the following are not a match for this seat:
- Web / full-stack developers (JavaScript, Node, C#, full-stack frameworks)
- AI / ML / LLM engineers whose hands-on experience is models and inference, not embedded systems
- IT / network administration backgrounds where databases and networks are infrastructure, not components of a physical system
- MBA candidates using this role as a stepping stone toward a founder / business track. This is a deep-craft engineering job, not a generalist business rotation.
Hiring Process
- Recruiter screen with the company's TA team after we submit your profile.
- 30–45 minute technical phone screen with the hiring team.
- On-site interview at the East Coast HQ (virtual panel available when travel cannot work for a strong candidate).
- Roundtable decision.
Typical timeline is one phone screen, sometimes two, before the on-site or virtual panel.