Forward Deployed Engineering Manager, FDE US Government

About the role

A Forward Deployed Engineering Manager (FDE Manager) leads a pod of FDEs embedded within strategic enterprise customers, owning delivery execution, engineering quality, and team development for their scope. FDE Managers own pod-level outcomes — they ensure their team delivers production AI systems that meet customer expectations, develop their engineers' careers, and contribute to the broader FDE practice's engineering standards. FDE Managers operate at pod/multi-pod scope. They lead 5–15 engineers, own technical delivery across one or more concurrent customer engagements, and define what "great" looks like for their team. They represent the FDE team to customer engineering leaders and AWS stakeholders, balancing delivery execution with people development.

This position requires that the candidate selected be a US Citizen and currently possess and maintain an active TS/SCI clearance with Polygraph.

Responsibilities

• Lead FDE pod delivery: own delivery across one or more customer engagements; staff and structure the team for optimal customer coverage; define execution cadences and ensure consistent engineering quality across active programs; requires up to 25% travel.
• Guide technical direction: provide technical oversight for customer AI programs within your scope; review architecture decisions and ensure alignment with customer needs and AWS best practices; resolve technical blockers and escalate strategically when needed.
• Own production excellence for your team: ensure operational standards, evaluation frameworks, and production readiness criteria are met for AI systems your team builds; drive improvements that raise the operational bar within your scope.
• Build and develop the team: hire, develop, and retain FDE talent; coach junior FDEs toward independence and career growth; drive performance management and create development plans; contribute to hiring bar and calibration standards.
• Accelerate customer adoption: identify opportunities to expand AI adoption within your customer engagements; ensure learnings are codified into reusable patterns and fed back into the broader FDE practice.

Basic qualifications

• 3+ years of engineering team management experience
• Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field
• 7+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
• Current, active US Government Security Clearance of TS/SCI with Polygraph
• 3+ years of experience working in an Agile, startup, or rapidly scaling environment
• Experience communicating technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences, including senior leadership
• Experience with agentic and spec-driven development (developing AI agents a plus)
• Experience building or deploying AI/ML applications in production environments at scale

Preferred qualifications

• Experience working with teams that build and scale end-to-end production systems
• Experience working in customer production environments
• Background leading engineering teams in customer-facing or consulting-adjacent roles
• Prior experience with React, TypeScript, Python, and/or Go
• Experience managing delivery across multiple concurrent customer programs
• 3+ years of leadership development and talent management experience

Pay

USA, CO, Denver — $184,900.00 – $250,200.00 USD annually

USA, NY, New York — $203,400.00 – $275,200.00 USD annually

USA, VA, Arlington — $184,900.00 – $250,200.00 USD annually

USA, WA, Seattle — $184,900.00 – $250,200.00 USD annually