Missionforce - Senior/Lead Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), Public Sector

Salesforce; Virginia (MN); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Salesforce is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer for the Public Sector, embedded with DoD, IC, and Aerospace customers to design and deploy AI solutions that drive mission-critical outcomes.

You will architect a planet-scale platform and ship hundreds of features daily with reliability and security, collaborating with mission stakeholders and mentoring junior engineers on best practices.

Qualifications

• 8+ years hands-on software engineering experience.
• 1-2 sentence about AI-first approach.

Responsibilities

• Serve as technical lead on high-profile engagements, designing and deploying Salesforce solutions for defense, intel, and aerospace missions.
• Engineer distributed systems across thousands of compute nodes on AWS, GCP, Azure, or GovCloud.
• Develop Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform), microservices (Kubernetes, Docker), and data pipelines.
• Build production-grade software with AI at the core of development workflows.
• Design systems where AI agents integrate into human workflows at scale.
• Mentor junior engineers and promote best practices across teams.

Skills

8+ years software engineering

Java

GoLang

Python

Ruby

AI-first engineering

AI tools

Prompt engineering

Enterprise data platforms

GovCloud experience

Team leadership

Security clearance

Tools

Terraform

Kubernetes

Docker

GitHub Copilot

Job description

Job Category

Software Engineering

About Salesforce

Salesforce is the #1 AI CRM, where humans with agents drive customer success together. Here, ambition meets action. Tech meets trust. And innovation isn't a buzzword - it's a way of life. The world of work as we know it is changing and we're looking for Trailblazers who are passionate about bettering business and the world through AI, driving innovation, and keeping Salesforce's core values at the heart of it all.

Ready to level-up your career at the company leading workforce transformation in the agentic era? You're in the right place! Agentforce is the future of AI, and you are the future of Salesforce.

Must be a U.S. citizen (U.S. born or naturalized) living on U.S. soil who does not hold dual citizenship with the ability to meet customer and government screening standards applicable to this role.

Candidates interested in the Hawaii location must be based in Oahu.

PLEASE NOTE: Qualification for this job is contingent upon acceptable results from a background investigation as well as your having and maintaining the specific level of U.S. government background investigation and clearance required for this role.

About the Role

As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) on our Public Sector team, you'll be embedded with U.S. Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and Aerospace clients - designing and deploying bespoke AI solutions that drive mission-critical outcomes. Additionally you'll architect the backbone of a planet-scale platform that ships hundreds of features daily with rock-solid reliability and security.

Mission Responsibilities

• Serve as the technical lead on high-profile customer engagements-designing, building, and deploying tailored Salesforce solutions for defense, intelligence, and aerospace missions.
• Engineer distributed systems running across thousands of compute nodes on AWS, GCP, Azure, or Alibaba Cloud
• Develop Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform), microservices (Kubernetes, Docker), and data pipelines
• Build and ship high-quality, production-grade software using modern engineering practices, with AI as a core part of your development workflow by pushing the boundaries of AI development tools to deliver secure, optimized, and high-quality code.
• Design and orchestrate complex systems where AI agents integrate seamlessly into human workflows, driving efficiency and innovation at scale.
• Contribute to building and maintaining the shared system context, an explicit repository of system designs, constraints, and standards that enables AI to operate accurately and reliably.
• Critically evaluate code (human or AI-generated) for correctness, quality, security, and performance.
• Partner directly with customers and mission stakeholders to translate complex needs into technical solutions
• Lead rapid prototyping, root cause analysis, and best-practice evangelism across teams
• Mentor junior engineers and serve as a technical role model

What We're Looking For

We're looking for a builder, a problem solver, and a mission-first Leader with a passion for public service. The ideal candidate brings:

• 8+ years of hands-on software engineering experience
• Deep proficiency in Java, GoLang, Python, or Ruby
• A demonstrated, genuine AI-first approach to engineering - using AI to move faster, build fluency across the stack, and contribute well beyond your core specialty.
• Experience using AI tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Codex, Cursor, etc.) in development workflows.
• Advanced prompt engineering skills and the ability to write precise, structured prompts and cultivate the system context that makes AI outputs reliable, secure, and production-ready.
• Experience with enterprise data platforms (Salesforce Data Cloud, Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery)
• Experience working in an air-gapped GovCloud environment
• Strong collaboration and communication skills - from command centers to executive briefings
• Ability to travel 25-50% of the time, as needed to customer sites.
• Active Secret or Top Secret clearance required

Preferred

• Background in defense/aerospace, classified environments (IL5/IL6), or federal civilian agencies
• Prior experience in a customer-facing, hands‑on technical lead or architect role.
• Salesforce platform experience (Agentforce, Data Cloud, Flows, LWC, Apex)
• Familiarity with IL5/IL6/CNSS #1253 requirements or deployment to classified environments.

This candidate must be a U.S. citizen (U.S. born or naturalized) who does not hold dual citizenship and agrees to complete a U.S. federal government Minimum Background Investigation (MBI) for a Moderate Public Trust position.

Unleash Your Potential

When you join Salesforce, you'll be limitless in all areas