Founding Engineer / Forward Deployed / Herndon, VA (DC area)

Motion Recruitment Partners LLC

Manassas Park (VA)

Hybrid

USD 150,000 - 190,000

Full time

14 days+

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Benefits offered by this job

Competitive base salary

Bonus eligible

Meaningful equity

Job summary

Motion Recruitment Partners LLC is seeking a Founding Forward Deployed Software Engineer for a full-time hybrid role in Herndon, VA. You will work across backend engineering, cloud infrastructure, and customer deployments using Go, Python, Kubernetes, AWS, and PostgreSQL.

You’ll be the bridge between customers and the engineering team, understanding production challenges and designing scalable solutions from initial conversation through deployment.

Qualifications

7+ years of software engineering experience.
Strong backend development experience with Go and/or Python.
Production experience with Kubernetes and AWS.
Experience building and deploying distributed systems.
Experience owning software from development through production.
Strong communication and customer-facing skills.
Ability to gather technical requirements and turn them into scalable software.
Comfortable troubleshooting complex production environments.

Responsibilities

Bridge between engineering and customers to understand environments and challenges.
Design and build functionality to solve customer production challenges.
Own solutions from initial conversation through production deployment.
Collaborate with customers to plan deployments and integrations.
Lead technical initiatives and provide guidance across teams.

Skills

Python

Backend development

Distributed systems

Customer-facing

Requirements gathering

Troubleshooting production

Communication skills

Tools

Kubernetes

AWS

PostgreSQL

Job description

An early-stage AI company in Herndon, VA is hiring a Founding Forward Deployed Software Engineer for a full-time position. This is a hybrid opportunity requiring three days per week onsite. You’ll work across backend engineering, cloud infrastructure, and customer deployments using Go, Python, Kubernetes, AWS, and PostgreSQL.

This role sits directly between the engineering team and the customers using the platform. Rather than simply handing requirements to another team, you’ll work with customers to understand their technical environments and production challenges, then design and build the functionality needed to solve them. You’ll remain a core product engineer while getting direct exposure to how sophisticated organizations are actually deploying AI in production. It’s a great fit for an engineer who enjoys ambiguous problems, customer interaction, and owning solutions from the initial conversation through production.

Required Skills & Experience