Forward Deployed Team Lead, Federal

About the role

C3 AI Forward Deployed Team Leads are senior tech leads who own a federal customer end-to-end, combining strong technical architecture, hands-on coding, product ownership, project management, and stakeholder communication to take the product from design to production.

This role requires US Citizenship and an Active Department of Defense (DoD) security clearance (Secret or higher) is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Technical architecture: own data flow, integration topology, identity model, and deployment topology across IL boundaries
• Hands-on coding: write production code yourself, including backend services, data pipelines, APIs, and integrations
• Product ownership: own the deployment's roadmap, execute on the Statement of work, and decide what's in scope
• Project management: own the plan, milestones, risks, and dependencies, and flag issues when they arise
• Stakeholder communication: run customer working sessions, brief program offices, and write clean status updates for senior stakeholders
• Ship into production, including high-side: deploy across IL2 → IL5 → IL6 as the mission requires, and work hands-on inside SIPR/JWICS and air-gapped networks
• Drive ATO / cATO: partner with security, ISSMs, and AOs to get authorization, and own the SSPs, POA&Ms, and accreditation artifacts
• Bridge field back to product: push field learnings into the core platform to improve future deployments

Qualifications

• BS/MS in CS, Software Engineering, or equivalent
• 6+ years shipping production software, with 2+ years as a tech lead
• Strong proficiency in Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, Java, Go, or C++
• Demonstrated ownership of systems taken from zero to production
• Prior delivery into a U.S. federal customer (civilian and/or DoW/DoD)
• Working knowledge of PMOs, ATOs, AOs, ISSMs, RMF, FedRAMP, and contract vehicles
• Hands-on deployment experience inside accredited environments — IL5 minimum; IL6 / SIPR / JWICS preferred
• U.S. citizen, Active TS/SCI strongly preferred or willing to pursue a security clearance

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior tech lead or staff engineer role at a federal-focused software vendor or service software factory
• Experience with AWS GovCloud / C2S, Azure Government / Government Secret, or other accredited cloud environments
• Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD into disconnected environments, data engineering at scale

Benefits and Compensation

C3 AI provides excellent benefits, a competitive compensation package, and a generous equity plan. The Virginia Base Pay Range is $130,000—$194,000 USD.