Senior Forward Deployed Engineer - Defense IT Deployments

Second Front Systems, Inc.; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 160,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive Salary

Healthcare coverage

401(k) + company contribution

Wellness perks

Equity incentive plan

Tech + office supplies stipend

Annual professional development

Flexible PTO + federal holidays off

Parental leave

Virtual work near hubs

Referral Bonus

Job summary

Second Front Systems, Inc. seeks a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer to lead high-impact deployments within government and defense engagements.

You will own end-to-end technical delivery, architect solutions across JWICS environments, and mentor a team of Forward Deployed and DevSecOps engineers. You will work closely with Engineering, Security/Compliance, and Product leadership to align field lessons with the product roadmap, ensuring accreditation outcomes and secure, resilient operations in

Qualifications

• 7–10 years of experience in systems deployment in regulated/classified government environments.
• Active DoD Top Secret/SCI clearance (or eligibility; active clearance preferred).
• Hands-on experience with multi-cloud government infrastructure and JWICS environments.
• Proficient in Go, Rust, Python, or Bash for automation.
• Strong leadership, mentoring, and customer-facing technical leadership.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end technical delivery for government and defense engagements across IL2–IL6, including JWICS environments.
• Serve as senior escalation point and primary client-facing authority; make on-site architectural and risk decisions.
• Lead and mentor Forward Deployed and DevSecOps Engineers; establish technical standards and playbooks.
• Deploy and harden secure Kubernetes-based infrastructure (Talos Linux, Docker, Istio, GitLab, Helm, Terraform).
• Translate field experience into product and platform improvements; influence roadmap decisions.
• Drive accreditation and cATO activities with RMF, NIST 800-53, and FedRAMP, addressing findings from assessments.
• Maintain configuration management, security documentation, and audit-ready evidence across engagements.
• Travel to client sites for deployments, updates, and operational exercises.

Skills

Field deployment experience

Government/classified deployments

Leadership

Go/Rust/Python scripting

Kubernetes security

Terraform/CloudFormation

Talos Linux

Docker

Istio

GitLab

Helm

Terraform

JWICS

Tools

Talos Linux

Docker

Istio

GitLab

Helm

Terraform

JWICS

Job description

Second Front Systems, Inc. seeks a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer to lead high-impact deployments within government and defense engagements.

You will own end-to-end technical delivery, architect solutions across JWICS environments, and mentor a team of Forward Deployed and DevSecOps engineers. You will work closely with Engineering, Security/Compliance, and Product leadership to align field lessons with the product roadmap, ensuring accreditation outcomes and secure, resilient operations in