Missionforce - Senior/Lead Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), Public Sector
Job details
- Work mode
- Remote
- Employment
- Full-time
- Level
- Staff / principal
- Experience
- 8+ years
- Posted
- Jul 16, 2026
- Last confirmed open
- Oct 23, 2026
What you'll need to apply
Fields this application requires
Company-specific questions
- Do you have the unrestricted right to work in the country to which you're applying? (You must answer “No” if you are on any visa or possess any government issued work authorization document that has an expiration date; you should answer “Yes” if you have DACA or TPS authorization in the US)
- Government Employment: In the last 5 years, have you been an employee of a U.S. federal, state, or local government, including a "special Government employee" (defined under 18 U.S.C. §202), or a member of the U.S. Armed Services (including Reserve and Guard components)?
- Government Responsibilities: Are you now or have you ever, directly or indirectly: been responsible for matters involving Salesforce (or one of its subsidiaries); participated in a procurement, evaluation, source selection or procurement decision involving Salesforce (or one of its subsidiaries); or participated in a contract, claim, controversy, or investigation involving Salesforce (or one of its subsidiaries)? Do you have a relative who is a government employee with responsibility for matters involving Salesforce (or one of its subsidiaries)?
- Do you have an immediate family member who is currently an employee of a U.S. federal, state, or local government, including a "special Government employee" (defined under 18 U.S.C. §202), or a member of the U.S. Armed Services (including Reserve and Guard components)?
- I attest/confirm? that I have no post-government employment restrictions currently applicable to me that have not already been addressed or disclosed in the previous questions, OR that if I am aware of any applicable restrictions, I will disclose them to the recruiter if contacted for further processing of my application. If I have received any written post-government employment advice from any current or former government employer that is still in force, I will provide it to the recruiter if contacted for further processing of my application.
- Are you currently or have you in the past been debarred, suspended, proposed for debarment or declared ineligible for award of a contract by any federal agency?
- Are you a citizen, national or permanent resident of Iran, Cuba, North Korea or Syria? As a U.S. company that exports software and technology internationally, we must comply with U.S. export control laws in every country where we operate. The information provided will be used to determine whether we need to obtain an Export Control License for your employment if you are hired.
- Regarding future positions at Salesforce, please select one of the following options
About this role
Must be a U.S. citizen (U.S. born or naturalized) living on U.S. soil who does not hold dual citizenship with the ability to meet customer and government screening standards applicable to this role.
Candidates interested in the Hawaii location must be based in Oahu.
PLEASE NOTE
Qualification for this job is contingent upon acceptable results from a background investigation as well as your having and maintaining the specific level of U.S. government background investigation and clearance required for this role.
About the Role
As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) on our Public Sector team, you'll be embedded with U.S. Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and Aerospace clients — designing and deploying bespoke AI solutions that drive mission-critical outcomes. Additionally you'll architect the backbone of a planet-scale platform that ships hundreds of features daily with rock-solid reliability and security.
This role demand a builder's mindset, an AI-first approach, and the technical depth to take complex challenges from concept to production.
Mission Responsibilities
- Serve as the technical lead on high-profile customer engagements—designing, building, and deploying tailored Salesforce solutions for defense, intelligence, and aerospace missions.
- Engineer distributed systems running across thousands of compute nodes on AWS, GCP, Azure, or Alibaba Cloud
- Develop Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform), microservices (Kubernetes, Docker), and data pipelines
- Build and ship high-quality, production-grade software using modern engineering practices, with AI as a core part of your development workflow by pushing the boundaries of AI development tools to deliver secure, optimized, and high-quality code.
- Design and orchestrate complex systems where AI agents integrate seamlessly into human workflows, driving efficiency and innovation at scale.
- Contribute to building and maintaining the shared system context, an explicit repository of system designs, constraints, and standards that enables AI to operate accurately and reliably.
- Critically evaluate code (human or AI-generated) for correctness, quality, security, and performance.
- Partner directly with customers and mission stakeholders to translate complex needs into technical solutions
- Lead rapid prototyping, root cause analysis, and best-practice evangelism across teams
- Mentor junior engineers and serve as a technical role model
What We're Looking For
We’re looking for a builder, a problem solver, and a mission-first Leader with a passion for public service. The ideal candidate brings:
- 8+ years of hands-on software engineering experience
- Deep proficiency in Java, GoLang, Python, or Ruby
- A demonstrated, genuine AI-first approach to engineering — using AI to move faster, build fluency across the stack, and contribute well beyond your core specialty.
- Experience using AI tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Codex, Cursor, etc.) in development workflows.
- Advanced prompt engineering skills and the ability to write precise, structured prompts and cultivate the system context that makes AI outputs reliable, secure, and production-ready.
- Experience with enterprise data platforms (Salesforce Data Cloud, Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery)
- Experience working in an air-gapped GovCloud environment
- Strong collaboration and communication skills — from command centers to executive briefings
- Ability to travel 25–50% of the time, as needed to customer sites.
- Active Secret or Top Secret clearance required
Preferred
- Background in defense/aerospace, classified environments (IL5/IL6), or federal civilian agencies
- Prior experience in a customer-facing, hands-on technical lead or architect role.
- Salesforce platform experience (Agentforce, Data Cloud, Flows, LWC, Apex)
- Familiarity with IL5/IL6/CNSS #1253 requirements or deployment to classified environments.
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