Forward Deployed Engineer

**Statecraft** Forward Deployed Engineer; $140K-$180K base + equity; Remote (US) (Remote)

**About Company** Statecraft sells AI workers to the US government. Government largely runs on consultants and contractors who cost far more than full-time employees and make up most of what people think of as government staff; that services market is roughly 2-3x larger than the entire government software industry (i.e. 2-3x Palantir). Statecraft supplies AI workers that do the same work - trained and evaluated on the same tasks - at a fraction of the cost, and passes most of the savings to the government.

The product has two cores. Workforce provides the AI workers: agent orchestration, the tools and software the workers build for themselves (all auditable, evidencible, and deterministic, running in a logical code pipeline), plus collaborative tools so agents can work where government already does - email, Outlook, Exchange, SharePoint, Excel. A second offering serves Intel and law-enforcement use cases (AI personas and asset curation; limited detail shared).

Backed by a $6M seed from institutional defense/government investors with deep ties on the Hill and at the DoD. The team is repeat, exited founders and operators from Palantir, Google, and the Department of State: CTO Priansh Shah (ex-Palantir, led programs across defense, intel, space, health and civil, including a stint on Project Maven), co-founders Ruben and Alex (Yale/Google; the team previously built and exited GovProAI together), and VP of Operations Alan (ex-Department of State GS-15, former Director of IT). Fully AI-native - they build everything internally (their own ATS, an in-house coding-agent harness that beats leading open-source harnesses, an in-house model family in training) and dogfood their own product.

**About the Role** Statecraft's #1 hire. FDEs own customer contracts end-to-end - part implementation consultant, part product engineer. You'll run demos with prospects, embed with federal customers to automate the manual workflows (spreadsheets, email chains, forms) eating their hours, and build the AI workers and tooling that replace them. You'll also push fixes and features back into the core platform, often via agentic coding, because the product is early and you'll hit its limits in front of customers. High ownership: you'll quickly own an entire customer relationship, then potentially several.

**Responsibilities** - Own federal customer relationships end-to-end: demos, implementation, land-and-expand. - Identify manual workflows and scope where AI workers fit. - Prototype, iterate, and ship AI solutions directly to customers. - Build and tailor AI workers for specific government roles. - Contribute fixes and features back to the core product and infrastructure.

**Required Skills** A. US citizen, eligible to obtain and maintain a US security clearance (restrictions apply). B. Deep, professional TypeScript expertise. C. Strong systems thinking / systems design, with infrastructure experience (Kubernetes; Postgres; Caddy/Tailscale a plus). D. Strong client-facing communication - able to run demos, win champions, and own customer relationships (a sales-adjacent role).

**Bonus Skills** - Active or recently-inactive security clearance (TS/SCI especially valuable). - Prior Forward Deployed Engineer experience. - Government/defense work or compliant-environment experience (GovCloud, FedRAMP, OSCAL). - Familiarity with AI/agentic systems; ML exposure. - Deep infrastructure / platform engineering.

**Logistical Info** - Location: Fully remote, CONUS; East Coast strongly preferred (NYC/DC ideal), or at minimum Eastern-time-zone overlap; occasional (fun) onsites. Must be a US citizen able to obtain/maintain a clearance. - Compensation: $140K-$180K base + equity - Number of openings: 1 - **Other:** Top-tier medical/dental/vision/life + 401(k) match; unlimited PTO with a "Touch Grass" policy (must take time off, ~2 weeks/yr minimum); 10 holidays + end-of-year break; home-office setup budget; monthly coworking/WFH stipend; phone/internet covered; monthly L&D budget; team offsites; highest-spec laptops + H100 GPU access; max-tier AI subscriptions and large token budgets.

**Ideal Background** - Strong engineering caliber from a reputable company (or strong projects/internships) — staff/principal tenure is not required; solid ability plus about a year at a decent company is enough. - A founder/builder track - has built and tried to ship something of their own, ideally on a similar stack (TypeScript, Kubernetes, agentic work). - Government/defense or compliant-environment experience (GovCloud, FedRAMP, OSCAL) is a major leg up. - Systems thinker who can run a customer contract like a "mini-founder."

**Green Flags** - High agency and ownership; can own a customer contract independently. - Personable, organized, and charming with customers; presentable and professional in interviews. - Builds end-to-end with a modern stack and AI/agentic tooling; ships fast. - Credible in-network (Statecraft likes to be <=2 connections from a candidate). - Mission-driven and patriotic, but ideologically impartial.

**Red Flags** - Not presentable / weak communication (this is a customer-facing, sales-adjacent role). - Strong or overt political views, or an anti-US stance (works with defense and intel customers). - Only comfortable in a structured/corporate environment; low autonomy. - Pattern of unexplained short stints; founder roles wound down with no clear outcome (mild).

**Interview Process** 1. Intro call with Alan (VP Ops; ex-DoS, ex-Palantir customer) - ~30 min. 2. Working session with Priansh (CTO) + Alan - ~1 hr, case-style for FDEs; talk-through of how you think, not coding (candidates come in blind). Sharing code is welcome. 3. Informal culture chat with Alex (CEO) - ~30 min; team intro and offer details.