[Hiring] Forward Deployed Full Stack Engineer @TribalScale

Role Description

We're looking for a Forward Deployed Full Stack Engineer who holds an active US Secret clearance to embed with a US government-facing client. You won't be handed a spec and left alone with a ticket queue. You'll work alongside the client's users and stakeholders, find out what they need, and build it and ship it into a secure environment, often in the same week.

This role suits an engineer who's equally comfortable:

• Building a React front end
• Designing an API
• Debugging a deployment in a locked-down environment
• Walking a non-technical stakeholder through a tradeoff

You'll be TribalScale's technical presence on site, so your judgment matters as much as your code.

What You’ll Do

• Embed with the client team.
• Work on site and remotely with end users, product owners, and the client's technical and security teams to understand their workflows firsthand.
• Build full stack, end to end.
• Ship production features across the front end, back end, data layer, and infrastructure. You own a feature from the first conversation through deployment.
• Deploy into secure, constrained environments.
• Turn ambiguous needs into working software.
• Integrate AI where it earns its place.
• Work within the security process.
• Be the bridge back to TribalScale.

Qualifications

• An active US Secret clearance (or higher) and the ability to maintain it. US citizenship is required. We can't sponsor a new clearance for this role.
• 5+ years of professional full stack development, shipping production software that real users rely on.
• Strong front-end skills in TypeScript and a modern framework (React preferred).
• Strong back-end skills in at least one of Python, Node.js, Java, or Go, plus REST and/or GraphQL API design.
• Relational database experience (PostgreSQL or similar), including data modeling and query performance.
• Hands-on with containers and CI/CD. Docker is a must; Kubernetes or OpenShift is a strong plus.
• Cloud experience on AWS, Azure, or GCP. Government regions (AWS GovCloud, Azure Government) are a plus.
• Client-facing confidence. You've worked directly with end users or customer stakeholders, and you can explain technical tradeoffs in plain language.
• AI-native development habits. You already use AI coding tools in your day-to-day work and know where they help and where they don't.
• Comfort with ambiguity. You can make progress, and make sensible calls, without a fully formed spec.

Nice to Have

• Prior forward deployed, field engineering, or embedded consulting experience.
• Experience deploying into air-gapped or disconnected environments.
• Familiarity with NIST 800-53, RMF/ATO processes, DISA STIGs, or FedRAMP.
• A DoD 8140/8570-aligned certification (e.g. CompTIA Security+).
• Experience building with LLMs: RAG, agent frameworks, evaluation, or running open-weight models on approved infrastructure.
• An active TS or TS/SCI clearance.

What Success Looks Like

In your first few months, you will have built trusted relationships with client and TribalScale teams, developed a strong understanding of the client’s operating environment, and contributed working software to a meaningful business challenge.

As you grow in the role, you will:

• Turn loosely defined client needs into clear, executable technical plans.
• Deliver AI-enabled products that perform reliably outside of controlled demonstrations.
• Establish evaluation and observability practices that make quality measurable and regressions visible.
• Improve agent behavior by refining harnesses, loops, tools, graphs, context, and safeguards—not only by changing prompts or models.
• Help client teams understand what their AI systems can do, where they can fail, and how they should be operated responsibly.
• Create reusable technical patterns that accelerate future TribalScale engagements.
• Become a trusted partner who can navigate uncertainty, solve difficult technical problems, and help promising ideas reach production.