Principal Forward Deployed Engineer - Defense

Principal Forward Deployed Engineer – Python / AI / Defense

A Frontier AI startup backed by $170m in funding is hiring a Principal Forward Deployed Engineer to work directly with defense customers, deploying and adapting next-generation AI, modelling & simulation technology for real-world mission requirements. This is a rare opportunity to join at a pivotal stage of growth, working alongside a team that has already assembled some of the strongest technical talent in the industry. The team includes alumni from OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft AI and NASA, combining deep foundation model research with world-class systems engineering and mathematical expertise.

Their technology enables defense and autonomous systems teams to develop, test and validate AI-generated software inside high-fidelity virtual environments, allowing complex capabilities to be evaluated across thousands of scenarios before deployment into the real world. You’ll sit at the intersection of product engineering, AI, simulation and defense, working directly with customers to understand their most challenging technical problems and turn them into robust, scalable software.

This is a highly hands-on, customer-facing engineering role. You’ll work directly with defense customers and internal research and engineering teams to understand mission requirements, prototype solutions, deploy software into customer environments and feed learnings directly back into the core product.

Experience Required:

• 7+ years' experience building production software and applications with Python
• Strong product engineering experience, with a track record of taking software from concept/prototype through to production
• Experience designing and developing APIs, backend services and integrations (REST, GraphQL, gRPC or similar)
• Experience working directly with customers, users or external technical stakeholders to understand requirements and deliver solutions
• Leading and mentoring engineering teams, and experience setting direction
• Strong ability to operate in ambiguous environments, rapidly prototype solutions and iterate based on customer feedback

This is an opportunity to become a technical bridge between frontier AI research and real-world defense applications. You’ll work directly with some of the world's most sophisticated defense organizations, solving problems that cannot be solved by off-the-shelf software and turning those challenges into capabilities that can ultimately become part of the core platform.

If you're a strong Python engineer who enjoys building products, working directly with customers and solving genuinely hard technical problems, and want to apply frontier AI and simulation technology to some of the most consequential engineering challenges in defense, this is an exceptional opportunity.

Please apply asap if interested.