Sr Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), AWS Forward Deployed Engineering, US Government

Amazon Inc.; United States; On-site; USD 168,000 - 227,000; Full time

Job summary

Amazon Inc. is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to embed with a strategic enterprise customer, designing, building, deploying, and running AI-powered production systems.

The role blends AWS SDE rigor with ownership of outcomes end-to-end, delivering reusable architectures and scalable patterns to accelerate AI adoption. The FDE leads technical strategy across engagements, writes production-grade software, mentors engineers, and drives production-readiness across multiple workstreams.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of non-internship professional software development experience.
• 5+ years of programming with at least one software programming language experience.
• 5+ years of leading design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience.
• Experience as a mentor, tech lead or leading an engineering team.
• Experience leading agentic and spec-driven development at production scale (developing AI agents a plus).
• Experience with AI tools: eval frameworks, agent tooling, RAG pipelines, and prompt engineering.
• US government security clearance of TS/SCI or above.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical delivery across customer engagements. Own the technical strategy and execution for complex, multi-workstream customer AI programs.
• Architect and build production AI systems at scale: multi-agent orchestration, enterprise retrieval systems, and decision intelligence platforms.
• Own production excellence across workstreams. Define operational standards, evaluation frameworks, and production-readiness criteria for AI systems.
• Scale the team's effectiveness. Define engineering patterns, contribute to the interview and hiring process, and mentor junior FDEs.
• Accelerate customer transformation. Identify systemic opportunities to expand AI adoption, create reusable accelerators that cut time-to-value.

Skills

Software dev exp

Programming exp

Design/Architecture lead

Mentoring/Tech lead

AI agent development

AI tooling

TS/SCI clearance

Education

B.S. in CS

Active TS/SCI clearance

Job description

Description

Application deadline: Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis

This position requires that the candidate selected be a US Citizen and currently possess and maintain an active US Government Top Secret clearance with SCI (or higher).

A Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) embeds directly inside a strategic enterprise customer to design, build, deploy, and run AI-powered production systems alongside the customer's engineering team. FDEs write production-grade software and own outcomes end-to-end, from prototype through enterprise-scale deployment, combining the technical rigor of an AWS SDE with the urgency and ownership required to deliver measurable customer business outcomes. They create reusable architectures, patterns, and engineering mechanisms that scale the entire FDE practice.

Key job responsibilities

• Lead technical delivery across customer engagements. Own the technical strategy and execution for complex, multi-workstream customer AI programs. Make architecture decisions that span multiple services and organizational boundaries. Align technical approach with the customer's long-term technology strategy. Requires up to 25% travel.
• Architect and build production AI systems at scale: multi-agent orchestration, enterprise retrieval systems, and decision intelligence platforms for the most complex engagements. Drive clarity where neither the business problem nor the technology approach is fully defined. Build production systems that handle enterprise-scale traffic and reliability requirements.
• Own production excellence across workstreams. Define operational standards, evaluation frameworks, and production-readiness criteria for AI systems. Establish mechanisms (testing strategies, observability standards, incident-response playbooks) that keep AI systems healthy.
• Scale the team's effectiveness. Define engineering patterns, contribute to the interview and hiring process, and mentor junior FDEs into independent contributors.
• Accelerate customer transformation. Identify systemic opportunities to expand AI adoption, create reusable accelerators that cut time-to-value from months to weeks, and feed learnings back into AWS services and the FDE practice.

A day in the life

An FDE III spends the day leading technical direction inside the customer's environment: architecting end-to-end AI solutions across multiple workstreams, mentoring FDE IIs and customer engineers on best practices, driving alignment between customer stakeholders and AWS service teams, and setting the technical bar for production-quality code and design. They operate with full autonomy on complex, ambiguous problems - defining the approach, unblocking teams, and ensuring delivery outcomes without needing guidance from others.

About the team

ABOUT AWS:

Diverse Experiences

Amazon values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the preferred qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying.

Why AWS

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. We pioneered cloud computing and never stopped innovating — that’s why customers from the most successful startups to Global 500 companies trust our robust suite of products and services to power their businesses.

Work/Life Balance

We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why we strive for flexibility as part of our working culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve in the cloud.

Inclusive Team Culture

AWS values curiosity and connection. Our employee-led and company-sponsored affinity groups promote inclusion and empower our people to take pride in what makes us unique. Our inclusion events foster stronger, more collaborative teams. Our continual innovation is fueled by the bold ideas, fresh perspectives, and passionate voices our teams bring to everything we do.

Mentorship and Career Growth

We’re continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth’s Best Employer. That’s why you’ll find endless knowledge-sharing, mentorship and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.

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Basic Qualifications

• 5+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
• 5+ years of programming with at least one software programming language experience
• 5+ years of leading design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
• Experience as a mentor, tech lead or leading an engineering team
• Experience leading agentic and spec-driven development at production scale (developing AI agents a plus)
• Experience with AI tools: eval frameworks, agent tooling, RAG pipelines, and prompt engineering
• US government security clearance of TS/SCI or above

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent
• Current, active TS/SCI US Government Security Clearance
• Experience building complex software systems that have been successfully delivered to customers
• Experience with AWS services
• Experience building or deploying AI/ML applications at enterprise production scale
• Experience with React, TypeScript, Python, and/or Go
• Experience leading customer-facing technical projects or managing external stakeholder relationships
• 3+ years of experience working in an Agile, startup, or rapidly scaling environment

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.

The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits .

USA, CO, Denver - 168,100.00 - 227,400.00 USD annually

USA, MD, Jessup - 168,100.00 - 227,400.00 USD annually

USA, VA, Arlington - 168,100.00 - 227,400.00 USD annually

USA, VA, Herndon - 168,100.00 - 227,400.00 USD annually

USA, WA, Seattle - 168,100.00 - 227,400.00 USD annually