[Hiring] Forward Deployed Engineer @UFORCE

Role Description

UFORCE is hiring a US Forward Deployed Engineer to deploy forward with customers and internal teams to make UFORCE systems work reliably in real-world environments. This role is focused on UAS and/or USV systems across exercises, red-team events, demos, and customer operations.

• Own end-to-end field integration, troubleshooting, and customer success across one or more technical disciplines — systems, networking, hardware, autonomy, software, electronics, or payload integration.
• Turn field learnings into repeatable kits, test plans, playbooks, and engineering improvements.
• This is a hands-on, high-ownership role for someone who can operate calmly under pressure, translate between operators and engineers, and make mission-ready capability the standard.

What you’ll do

• Deploy forward to customer sites, ranges, exercises, and operational environments to prepare, integrate, test, troubleshoot, and sustain UFORCE systems.
• Lead technical readiness for major exercises, red-team events, and customer contracts, including pre-ship, arrival, pre-mission, and go/no-go gates.
• Own field incident response: diagnose issues, create minimal reproductions, capture evidence, coordinate fixes, and drive root-cause closure.
• Build deployment evidence packages, including configuration baselines, network diagrams, spectrum/safety approvals, software versions, test results, and logs.
• Create and maintain standardized deployment kits, spares packages, images, configs, scripts, and field playbooks.
• Partner with engineering teams to convert field failures and operator feedback into validated software, autonomy, hardware, network, payload, and process improvements.
• Maintain customer and internal operating cadence through crisp status updates, risk tracking, decision logs, AARs, and action-item closeout.
• Help train operators, maintainers, and internal teams so deployments become more repeatable over time.

What success looks like

• Supported major exercises and customer operations with strong technical readiness, high mission availability, and no mission-stopping technical aborts attributable to integration or setup.
• Reduced recurring field issues and MTTR through disciplined troubleshooting, evidence capture, and root-cause resolution.
• Established complete, repeatable deployment evidence kits and AAR processes that help the team move faster without sacrificing safety, compliance, or configuration control.
• Built deployment kits and playbooks that reduce setup-to-ready time and make sustainment easier in austere environments.
• Delivered field-driven engineering improvements that are validated on range and reflected in released builds or configurations.

Qualifications

• Deep hands-on experience in at least one relevant technical specialty: systems engineering, network engineering, autonomy, software, electronics, payload integration, or hardware.
• Experience working with UAS and/or USV systems, or closely related deployed robotics, autonomy, defense, maritime, aerospace, or field-engineered systems.
• Strong field integration instincts: configuration baselines, build-to-deploy workflows, imaging, version control, automated checks, and release discipline.
• Practical networking knowledge, including IP planning, routing/switching, RF/spectrum constraints, secure comms basics, logging, and telemetry.
• Strong troubleshooting toolkit: logs, packet captures, electrical debugging, scripting, automated checks, and disciplined test planning.
• Ability to operate in environments requiring access control, least privilege, auditability, and sound security posture.
• Clear communication with customers, operators, engineers, PMs, and executives — especially under time pressure.
• High ownership, strong judgment, and a bias toward evidence-based execution over hero debugging.

Requirements

• US citizen.
• TS/SCI cleared or credibly eligible.
• Willing to deploy forward for exercises, red-team events, demos, and customer operations.
• Comfortable working hands-on in austere environments such as shipboard, range, remote, or irregular-hours settings.

Nice to have

• Prior FDE, FSR, field engineering, or deployment experience supporting defense programs, exercises, SOCOM, Navy, Army, or similar users.
• Experience with autonomy tuning, GNSS-denied environments, EW/spectrum coordination, safety-of-flight, or safety approvals.
• Experience building evidence or compliance kits, including configuration management, test artifacts, and ATO-style workflows.
• Instructor mindset and experience training customers, operators, maintainers, or internal teams.

How we work

We optimize for mission readiness, evidence-based execution, tempo with safety, and customer trust. The right person for this role is a systems thinker and hands-on doer who can move from symptoms to hypotheses to tests to fixes — while keeping operators, customers, and engineering teams aligned.

The nature of combat has changed. Tomorrow’s battlefield success depends on autonomy, speed, and adaptability. And UFORCE is ready. Are You?