Senior Forward Deployed Engineer — Defense & Government Systems

Tagup; Town of Florida (NY); On-site; USD 150,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Tagup, a defense technology company founded at MIT, is seeking a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer to lead high-stakes customer engagements. You will own the plan, design decisions, and delivery, integrating our platform with government data systems under real constraints.

You will work directly with customer technical staff, debug production issues in their environments, mentor engineers, and set the standard for field-ready software that supports national security and defense logistics.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering with customer-facing or systems integration work.
• Deep knowledge of Python or TypeScript and SQL, with data integration experience.
• Experience deploying in constrained environments like government cloud or on-prem.
• Ability to defend design decisions to skeptical customers and teams.
• Experience mentoring engineers and code reviews.
• Willingness to travel to customer sites, including military installations.
• U.S. citizenship and eligibility to obtain a U.S. government security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Lead customer engagements end to end: integration with government data and systems, designed and built under real constraints
• Translate ambiguous requirements into technical plans, and deliver multi-week engagements without close supervision
• Build custom workflows that drive adoption, usage, and engagement with key customers
• Debug production issues in customer environments, including government cloud
• Document design decisions that hold up under scrutiny, and review code across the team
• Make sound speed-versus-robustness trade-offs under program constraints
• Mentor engineers and bring what you learn in the field back to the product team

Skills

Python

TypeScript

SQL

Data integration

System design

Mentoring engineers

Customer-facing

Travel

US citizenship

Job description

Tagup is a defense technology company founded at MIT that is delivering logistics decision advantage with next-generation AI. We’re growing rapidly and are looking for change-makers passionate about delivering innovative technologies to solve the most challenging problems in the world’s highest stakes environments. This is an exciting opportunity to engage in meaningful work that strengthens national security and contributes to the success of U.S. and allied forces. Join us in shaping the future of defense logistics for a safer tomorrow.

Senior Forward Deployed Engineers lead customer engagements, including our most important ones. You’ll be handed an outcome rather than a specification: a program that needs our platform integrated with government data systems under real constraints. You produce the plan, make the design decisions, build it, and ship it.

You’ll work directly with customer technical staff, debug production issues in their environments, and make the speed-versus-robustness trade-offs that defense delivery demands. You’ll also raise the team around you, reviewing code, mentoring engineers, and setting the standard for how the team builds with customers.

Responsibilities

• Lead customer engagements end to end: integration with government data and systems, designed and built under real constraints

• Turn ambiguous requirements into technical plans, and deliver multi-week engagements without close supervision

• Build custom workflows that drive adoption, usage, and engagement with key customers

• Debug production issues in customer environments, including government cloud

• Document design decisions that hold up under scrutiny, and review code across the team

• Make sound speed-versus-robustness trade-offs under program constraints

• Mentor engineers and bring what you learn in the field back to the product team

Desired Skills

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, including customer-facing or systems-integration work owned end to end

• Depth in Python and/or TypeScript and SQL, data integration against messy sources, and system design under constraint

• Experience deploying and debugging in environments you don’t control: government cloud, on-prem, or otherwise constrained

• Judgment on trade-offs, and the ability to defend a design decision to a skeptical customer engineer and to your own team

• Experience mentoring engineers and reviewing code across a team

• Willingness to travel to customer sites (military installations across the U.S.)

• U.S. citizenship and eligibility to obtain a U.S. government security clearance

Bonus Points

• Military service or experience delivering software into defense programs. Veterans are strongly encouraged to apply

• Familiarity with service supply, maintenance, and readiness data systems

• Experience with accreditation processes and impact-level government environments

• An active security clearance

You don’t need to check every box. If the mission and the work resonate, apply.

Salary

The estimated salary range for this position is between $150,000 and $180,000 annually. We strive to provide a competitive salary and benefits package that aligns with our employees’ experience and qualifications. Our primary objective is to attract and retain top talent, and we firmly believe in compensating our employees fairly for their invaluable contributions.

As a rapidly expanding technology company, we extend part-ownership to all team members through an Employee Stock Option Plan. Additionally, we offer comprehensive health insurance benefits, access to the company’s 401K plan, and foster a team-oriented work environment with regular company outings!

Why Join Us

• The mission is real. Our software runs in front of people whose job is to keep the fleet moving — the consequences of getting it right are tangible.

• Small team, high leverage. You'll have visibility from the engineering trenches to the executive team, and your work will compound.

• Hard problems worth solving. Reinforcement learning applied to logistics at the scale of a military service is genuinely novel work.

• Competitive comp, meaningful equity, and the kind of professional growth that comes from being trusted with big things early.

Tagup is an equal opportunity employer and individuals seeking employment with us are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Citizenship: Due to the nature of our work with the U.S. Department of Defense, applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor visas at this time.