Forward Deployed Engineer

Role

We're hiring a forward deployed engineer to embed with Aslan's customers and write the code that makes our platform solve their specific mission. You'll sit alongside intelligence analysts, targeting officers, and federal agents, learn the operational problem they're actually trying to solve, and build until the platform does something they can't live without.

The threats our operators face destroy lives at scale, and the people fighting them have never had a tool built for the terrain those threats now occupy. Every line of code you ship in the field puts capability in the hands of someone who has been outmatched by an adversary they couldn't previously reach. That's the weight of this job, and it's why it matters.

This is an engineering role, not a deployment or support role. You write production code at customer sites. You take our core platform and make it work inside operational environments that are messy, sensitive, and unlike anything the product team could have anticipated. You build the custom integrations, the tailored workflows, the mission-specific configurations that turn a general capability into something indispensable for this operator, on this mission, with these targets. And you bring every pattern, every failure, every insight back to the core engineering team so the platform gets better for everyone.

At this stage there is no playbook. You are the product team in the field. What the operator needs tomorrow is something nobody has built yet, and you'll figure it out on the ground, in real time, under real conditions.

Responsibilities

• Embed with customers and write production code that makes Aslan's platform solve their specific operational problem

• Learn the customer's mission, targets, and workflows deeply enough to build the right thing, not the thing the product spec assumed

• Build custom integrations, mission-specific agent configurations, tailored analytics, and operator-facing workflows that make the intelligence output actionable

• Debug agent behavior in live operational environments and fix it with code, not escalation

• Identify patterns across deployments and bring them back to the core engineering team as product insights that shape what gets built next

• Iterate in days, not quarters, because the problems are live and the operators can't wait

What You Bring

• 3+ years of software engineering. You've shipped production code, not prototypes, and you've done it under pressure.

• Full-stack generalist instincts. Whatever blocks the deployment becomes your job, whether that's backend services, data pipelines, agent configuration, or a UI the operator needs by morning.

• Working knowledge of AI/ML systems, enough to reason about agent behavior, diagnose failures, and write the code that fixes them without waiting for the research team.

• The ability to understand a domain that isn't yours. You'll sit with operators whose world you've never lived in and build software that fits their reality, not yours.

• Self-directed to the core. When you're embedded, you're the engineering team. You make the calls.

• DMV-based, willing to travel to customer sites regularly and stay for extended periods.

Bonus Points

• You've been embedded at a customer site writing production code, not visiting for a demo

• Experience with AI agent systems, LLM applications, or autonomous systems in production

• Prior work in classified, IC, or government environments

• You've been the sole engineer on a live customer engagement at an early-stage company

• Prior military, intelligence, or law enforcement background

• Active, recent, or eligibility for a U.S. security clearance (TS preferred)