The Opportunity

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. Get software running in on-prem, government cloud, or restricted networks, where the tooling and internet access you're used to may not be available.
• Turn ambiguous needs into working software. Prototype quickly, put something real in front of users, and iterate with them. Don't wait for a perfect requirements doc.
• Integrate AI where it earns its place. Build LLM-powered features and agentic workflows that fit the client's security and data-handling constraints, including working with self-hosted or approved models.
• Work within the security process. Write code and documentation that hold up under security review, and partner with the client's ISSO and compliance teams on authorization requirements.
• Be the bridge back to TribalScale. Bring field insight to our broader engineering and product teams, and pull in TribalScale specialists when the engagement needs them.

What We're Looking For

• 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

• 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.

Why TribalScale

You'll do work that matters to the people using it, and you'll see the impact up close because you'll be sitting with them. You'll have the independence of a forward deployed role with a full AI-first engineering firm behind you: product managers, designers, and engineers who are shipping agentic systems in production for enterprise clients. We value judgment, speed, and honesty over process for its own sake.