Forward Deployed Engineer - Clearance Required
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Nov 2, 2026. First seen by Alion on Sep 16, 2026. LMI scores A on the Alion truth index.
Overview
We’re looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer to help deploy, extend, and integrate LIGER, an enterprise AI platform that connects knowledge, systems, and agentic workflows to accelerate outcomes across federal missions. You’ll join a small, cross-functional team working directly with customers to get LIGER into production and build the features that make it stick. This position can be supported in a hybrid/remote capacity as there may be on-site work required by the customer.
This is a customer-facing technical role. You’ll embed with customers for 60-180 days post-sale, configure deployments, build custom integrations, and ship features that solve real problems on the ground. You’ll also run proof-of-concept demonstrations, translate customer needs into working code, and feed insights back to the core product team. If you’re excited about building at the intersection of AI, government missions, and real users, keep reading. This position requires the ability to obtain a CBP Background Investigation; U.S. citizenship is required.
LIGER sits within LMI’s Chief Technology Office. We’re a small, high-visibility team building AI tools for federal agencies. The culture is more startup than traditional government contractor; we move fast, solve problems in design spikes rather than scheduled reviews, and care more about outcomes than process. That said, we’re building for users who need reliability and trust, so craft and attention to detail matter.
As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you’ll work directly with customers while staying closely connected to the core product team. You’ll have real influence on what gets built and how it gets deployed.
LMI is a new breed of digital solutions provider dedicated to accelerating government impact with innovation and speed. Investing in technology and prototypes ahead of need, LMI brings commercial-grade platforms and mission-ready AI to federal agencies at commercial speed.
Leveraging our mission-ready technology and solutions, proven expertise in federal deployment, and strategic relationships, we enhance outcomes for the government, efficiently and effectively. With a focus on agility and collaboration, LMI serves the defense, space, healthcare, and energy sectors-helping agencies navigate complexity and outpace change. Headquartered in Tysons, Virginia, LMI is committed to delivering impactful results that strengthen missions and drive lasting value.
Responsibilities
What You’ll Do
- Work closely with customers to integrate the LIGER GenAI platform into their existing business processes
- Build and ship features across the full stack: Angular/TypeScript frontend, Node.js/Python backend, PostgreSQL
- Design and implement agentic workflows: tool-calling, multi-step reasoning pipelines, and the orchestration infrastructure that makes them reliable in customer environments
- Build and maintain document processing pipelines supporting text extraction, chunking, metadata enrichment, indexing, and persistence for downstream semantic retrieval use cases
- Ensure successful deployment and initial configuration of the LIGER platform, supporting customers for 60-180 days post-sale before transitioning the deployment to a long-term project team
- Conduct proof-of-concept demonstrations to showcase LIGER’s capabilities and its value to potential and existing customers
- Rapidly build features into or around LIGER’s core platform to meet customer-specific needs, working closely with the core product team to integrate new features into the product
- Document and communicate customer requirements and feedback to ensure continuous improvement and alignment with customer priorities
- Engage directly with customers in various formats, including in-person, hybrid, or remote work as required by the customer
- Travel occasionally to customer locations within the United States for direct engagements and support
- Work collaboratively with internal teams including product management, engineering, and support to deliver seamless solutions to customers
Qualifications
What We’re Looking For
- This position requires the ability to obtain a CBP Background Investigation; U.S. citizenship is required.
- 3+ years of full stack development experience, comfortable owning both frontend and backend
- Proficiency in Angular and TypeScript on the frontend
- Solid backend experience in Node.js and/or Python
- Experience using PostgreSQL to store, retrieve, and manage structured application data, with experience in database design and SQL development
- Hands-on experience building with LLMs (prompt engineering, API integration, tool use, and managing model outputs in production)
- Familiarity with agentic patterns: orchestration, tool-calling, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), or multi-step agent flows
- Experience designing and developing RESTful APIs and backend services
- Active use of AI-assisted development tools in your day-to-day coding workflow
- Strong knowledge of containerization technologies (e.g. Docker) and CI/CD pipelines, specifically with GitLab
- Familiarity with cloud computing deployment models, especially AWS GovCloud and/or working within a federal environment
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to interact effectively with multiple stakeholders, including senior executives from government and industry
- Ability to manage multiple tasks in a fast-paced environment and prioritize effectively
What Will Set You Apart
- Background in NLP, computational linguistics, or data science, with hands-on experience in text extraction, entity recognition, embeddings, semantic search, or related techniques
- Experience building scalable document processing pipelines supporting text extraction, chunking, metadata enrichment, indexing, and persistence for downstream semantic retrieval use cases
- Experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP): building servers, defining tools, or integrating MCP into an agent stack
- Familiarity with frameworks like LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar orchestration tools
- A portfolio of side projects, open-source contributions, or other evidence of a builder’s disposition
- Demonstrated fluency with AI coding tools and a workflow that treats them as force multipliers
- Proven ability to work quickly and independently as part of a small team of engineers to deliver high-quality, tailored solutions
- Experience in sales engineering within the federal government sector, with a deep understanding of federal customers’ unique challenges and requirements
- Background working on AI-native products or internal tooling where models are core to the user experience, not bolted on
- Familiarity with federal cybersecurity requirements and vulnerability management concepts
- Familiarity with container orchestration engines such as Kubernetes (e.g., EKS, AKS, GKE, OpenShift)
- Strong background in Unix/Linux operating systems
- Knowledge of AWS products and capabilities, with specific experience in GovCloud environments
- Ability to clearly communicate the value and benefits of technical solutions to non-technical audiences
Target salary range: $145,000 - $210,000
Disclaimer: The salary range displayed represents the typical salary range for this position and is not a guarantee of compensation. Individual salaries are determined by various factors including, but not limited to location, internal equity, business considerations, client contract requirements, and candidate qualifications, such as education, experience, skills, and security clearances.