Forward Deployed Engineer

About the role

Tagup is a defense technology company founded at MIT that is delivering logistics decision advantage with next-generation AI. We’re growing rapidly and are looking for change-makers passionate about delivering innovative technologies to solve the most challenging problems in the world’s highest stakes environments. This is an exciting opportunity to engage in meaningful work that strengthens national security and contributes to the success of U.S. and allied forces. Join us in shaping the future of defense logistics for a safer tomorrow.

Forward Deployed Engineers work inside customer programs rather than at a distance from them. You’ll integrate our platform with government data and systems under real constraints, onboard messy real-world data, build the workflows a program runs on, and support deployments in customer environments, including on-site when a program needs it.

The work reaches users quickly. What you ship often gets into the hands of the people making readiness decisions within weeks, and what you learn in the field feeds back into the product.

Responsibilities

Integrate our platform with government data and systems under real constraints, and onboard the imperfect data programs actually run on

Configure the product against program requirements and support releases, including in government cloud environments

Build custom workflows that drive adoption, usage, and engagement with key customers

Triage and resolve customer-reported issues in their environments rather than passing them along

Own a component or program workstream end to end, returning working systems from a requirements document rather than closed tickets

Spend time on-site with customers, become their technical counterpart, and bring what you learn back to the product team

Write, test, and review code to a standard the rest of the team can build on

Desired Skills

2+ years of professional software engineering experience, or equivalent demonstrated ability

Proficiency in Python and/or TypeScript, with SQL and data-heavy work: ETL, integration, and wrangling imperfect real-world data

Clear communication with technical and non-technical stakeholders, and comfort working directly with customers

Bias toward ownership: handed a requirements document, you return a working system

Willingness to travel to customer sites (military installations across the U.S.)

U.S. citizenship and eligibility to obtain a U.S. government security clearance

Bonus Points

Military service or experience supporting defense programs. Veterans are strongly encouraged to apply

Familiarity with service supply, maintenance, and readiness data systems

Experience deploying software in government cloud or other constrained or air-gapped environments

An active security clearance

You don’t need to check every box. If the mission and the work resonate, we'd love to hear from you!

What Success Looks Like In Year One

Customer decisions that used to run on spreadsheets and tribal knowledge are running on data you helped instrument

The product team is shipping features that came directly from patterns you spotted on the ground

Manual reporting that used to eat days of analyst time is automated and trusted

When senior leadership at a customer command wants to know how their logistics operation is really performing, the answer comes from a system you helped build

Salary

The estimated salary range for this position is between $120,000 and $150,000 annually. We strive to provide a competitive salary and benefits package that aligns with our employees’ experience and qualifications. Our primary objective is to attract and retain top talent, and we firmly believe in compensating our employees fairly for their invaluable contributions.

As a rapidly expanding technology company, we extend part-ownership to all team members through an Employee Stock Option Plan. Additionally, we offer comprehensive health insurance benefits, access to the company’s 401K plan, and foster a team-oriented work environment with regular company outings!

Why Join Us

The mission is real. Our software runs in front of people whose job is to keep the fleet moving — the consequences of getting it right are tangible

Small team, high leverage. You'll have visibility from the engineering trenches to the executive team, and your work will compound

Hard problems worth solving. Reinforcement learning applied to logistics at the scale of a military service is genuinely novel work

Competitive comp, meaningful equity, and the kind of professional growth that comes from being trusted with big things early

Tagup is an equal opportunity employer and individuals seeking employment with us are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Citizenship: Due to the nature of our work with the U.S. Department of Defense, applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor visas at this time.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.