Mission Delivery Engineer - CA

Mission Delivery Engineer (MDE)

Location: El Segundo, CA

Role Overview

Kamiwaza AI is seeking a Mission Delivery Engineer (MDE) to serve as a forward-deployed, hands-on technical leader for U.S. federal customers. You will own the technical journey from pre-sales discovery and proof-of-value (PoV) demos of custom applications on the Kamiwaza platform through production implementation and successful hand-off to the customer or an integration partner.

This role is built for a builder who is also consultative and delivery-minded: you can run discovery, quantify value, tell a compelling technical story, write real code, and then harden what you built so it can operate reliably in mission environments (including constrained, disconnected, or air-gapped deployments).

This is not a pure presentation role and not a back-office engineering role. It is an end-to-end mission delivery role that combines pre-sales technical execution with post-sale implementation, operationalization, enablement, and structured handover.

Core Mission

Accelerate federal adoption of Kamiwaza by translating high-value mission use cases into credible PoVs and demo experiences, and then converting the successful PoVs into production-ready deployments and repeatable delivery patterns that reduce risk, increase win rate, and improve time-to-mission impact.

Key Responsibilities

Mission Discovery, Scoping & Success Planning

• Lead technical discovery with DoD/IC and federal customers: mission workflows, data sources, operating constraints (including DDIL), stakeholders, and success criteria.

• Translate discovery into a clear use case definition, solution outline, and measurable PoV plan (what 'good' looks like, how it will be measured, and what data is required).

• Define a PoV-to-production path upfront: architecture assumptions, integration points, security considerations, and what must be true for production go-live.

Pre-Sales PoV, Demos, Workshops & Rapid Prototyping

• Design and deliver tailored demos, whiteboard sessions, and hands-on workshops for executive and practitioner audiences.

• Build rapid prototypes and custom apps on top of the Kamiwaza platform using real or representative customer data, often under tight timelines.

• Demonstrate mission workflows such as RAG, agentic orchestration, streaming/event-driven ingestion, and edge-capable inference, aligned to customer constraints.

• Instrument PoVs with basic evaluation and guardrails (grounding checks, policy constraints, transparency) to maintain credibility and accelerate stakeholder buy-in.

Production Implementation & Delivery Engineering

• Convert successful PoVs into production implementations: harden code, modularize components, introduce testing, and align with customer engineering standards.

• Design and implement integrations with customer identity, data, and workflow systems (APIs, messaging/streaming, file stores, enterprise data platforms).

• Establish deployment automation and environment parity (dev/test/prod) using containerization and modern DevOps practices (Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, logging/metrics).

• Drive performance, reliability, and operational readiness for mission workloads (observability, scaling, cost/performance tradeoffs, and failure-mode planning).

Security, Compliance & Deployment Readiness

• Operate with a security-first mindset: data containment, least privilege, auditability, and safe handling of sensitive customer information.

• Partner with security/accreditation stakeholders to support an RMF/ATO-ready approach (documentation inputs, deployment patterns, and control considerations).

• Ensure demos, PoVs, and production deployments remain credible by aligning with customer environment constraints and sustainment realities (including classified and air-gapped environments).

Handoff, Enablement & Partner Collaboration

• Deliver clear hand-off packages to customers or partners: architecture diagrams, deployment guides, runbooks, IaC/configuration artifacts, and code repositories as appropriate.

• Lead knowledge transfer sessions and enablement workshops for customer and partner engineers, operators, and sustainment teams.

• Define acceptance criteria with stakeholders and drive to a documented production sign-off (or a clear, agreed transition plan) at the end of each engagement.

• Coordinate with systems integrators and partners to ensure continuity from PoV through production, including roles/responsibilities, interfaces, and escalation paths.

Technical Deal Support & Field-to-Product Feedback

• Partner with Sales and Capture to shape technical win strategies, address customer objections, and support bid/no-bid decisions with clear delivery and technical risk assessment.

• Contribute to proposals and technical responses (architecture, integration approach, security posture, and implementation plan).

• Capture structured feedback from engagements and translate it into actionable product requirements, prioritizing gaps that impact multiple customers.

• Partner with Engineering and Product to improve packaging, documentation, deployment automation, and connectors that reduce delivery friction.

First 180 Days - Mandate for Success

Days 0-45: Platform Mastery & Delivery Toolkit

• Achieve deep, hands-on mastery of the Kamiwaza platform (core capabilities, APIs/SDKs, deployment patterns, and differentiators).

• Stand up a repeatable demo/PoV environment (containers/Kubernetes, configs, datasets, scripts) that can run reliably on customer laptops and in constrained environments.

• Create a PoV-to-production starter kit: reference repo structure, baseline CI/CD, logging/metrics standards, and documentation templates for handoff.

• Shadow priority accounts to learn target missions, typical data sources, and stakeholder dynamics; identify 2-3 high-leverage PoV use cases.

Days 46-120: PoV Impact and Production Conversion

• Lead discovery and deliver tailored demos for priority accounts; own at least 1-2 PoV engagements end-to-end.

• Convert at least one PoV into a production implementation or a production-ready pilot (with deployment automation, observability, and security posture aligned to the target environment).

• Establish a repeatable handoff motion with a partner or customer team (documentation, enablement sessions, and acceptance criteria).

• Partner with Sales/Capture to influence active pursuits with clear technical win themes and delivery risk mitigation plans.

Days 121-180: Scale Repeatability and Partner Enablement

• Create repeatable playbooks: discovery checklist, PoV scoping templates, demo flows, production hardening checklist, and handoff/enablement kits.

• Reduce time-to-demo and time-to-production by standardizing reference architectures and deployment patterns across cloud, core data centers, and edge.

• Enable at least one partner or customer team to independently deploy and operate a Kamiwaza-based solution using your handoff materials and training.

• Provide structured field feedback that influences roadmap items tied to federal deployment, security, integration needs, and delivery acceleration.

Minimum Requirements

Federal Customer-Facing & Delivery Experience

• 6+ years in customer-facing technical roles (Solutions Engineer, Sales Engineer, Solutions Architect, Forward-Deployed Engineer, Delivery Engineer, or similar) supporting U.S. federal customers.

• Demonstrated ability to lead end-to-end engagements: discovery, technical validation, PoV/pilot, production implementation, and handoff to customer or partner.

• Comfort operating in sensitive mission contexts and communicating clearly within security and information-handling constraints.

Hands-On Technical Depth

• Strong software engineering skills with the ability to build and harden applications rapidly (Python strongly preferred; experience with APIs/SDKs and modern web/app frameworks).

• Working knowledge of GenAI systems (LLMs), RAG/retrieval, embeddings/vector search, agentic workflows, and evaluation/guardrails.

• Experience with distributed systems concepts and integration patterns (APIs, event-driven/streaming, data pipelines).

• Experience with containerized deployments and modern DevOps practices (Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, logging/metrics); familiarity with infrastructure as code is a plus.

Consultative Communication, Ownership & Leadership

• Ability to translate technical capabilities into mission impact and customer value - tailored to executive and practitioner audiences.

• Strong storytelling, whiteboarding, and workshop facilitation skills; comfortable driving technical decisions and handling objections in real time.

• High ownership and bias-to-action: able to drive toward outcomes with minimal supervision while coordinating across Sales, Product, Engineering, and partners.

Security & Travel

• U.S. citizenship required.

• Active TS/SCI clearance.

• Ability to travel (CONUS) including to customer sites and secure locations as required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting DoD/IC deployments in classified, air-gapped, or DDIL environments; familiarity with RMF/ATO processes and NIST 800-53 control families.

• Experience delivering production implementations with clear operational ownership (runbooks, monitoring, incident response posture, and sustainment handoffs).

• Experience building integrations with common federal data platforms, streaming systems, and identity/access systems.

• Prior military service or direct experience supporting operational mission teams.

• Published demos, open-source contributions, or prior work building reference solutions for developer platforms.

Why Join Us?

• Purpose & Impact: Be a key contributor to the GenAI revolution, shaping how enterprises adopt next-generation technology.

• Remote-First Culture: Based in Colorado, but work from anywhere with the tools and support you need.

• Expert Founders with Successful Exits: Our leadership team brings experience and a relentless enthusiasm for GenAI innovation.

• High-Autonomy Environment: Flat organizational structure, transparent communication, and minimal red tape.

• Competitive Compensation & Equity: Own a piece of our high-potential, well-funded startup.

• Comprehensive Benefits: Health coverage, remote workspace support, and more.

Who We Are

• We're a small, driven team building a platform that makes GenAI deployment feel like magic.

• Our approach: curious, humble, but relentless.

• We're fun, kind, and exceptional-serious about making an impact but never taking ourselves too seriously.

• We operate with high urgency but think for the long term-action creates clarity.

How to Apply

Ready to build the foundation of the GenAI revolution? Please include a short write-up of a customer problem you solved end-to-end and a link to any reusable asset or press release that came out of it.

P.S. If you use GenAI to craft your application, we'll probably find out-and we'd love to learn more about how you did it!

This role offers a base salary between $170,000 and $210,000, plus equity and benefits. Actual compensation will reflect an individual’s experience, impact, and location. Our benefits include low-deductible medical plans, flexible time off, and supportive family leave policies.