Salesforce

Missionforce - Senior/Lead Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), Public Sector

Salesforce$148K — $365K *
Aerospace & Defense
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 8+ years in hands-on, end-to-end delivery roles for robust production solutions.
  • Strong computer science background or related engineering discipline.
  • Expertise in one or more programming languages (JavaScript, Java, Python, Apex).
  • Extensive experience with AI/LLM technologies and advanced AI orchestration frameworks.
  • Deep understanding of data modeling, integration, and analytics on enterprise data platforms.
  • Proven ability to lead technical initiatives and mentor junior team members.
  • Exceptional communication skills, capable of conveying technical concepts to diverse audiences.

Responsibilities

  • Serve as the technical lead on customer engagements, designing and deploying Salesforce solutions.
  • Collaborate with product and engineering teams to develop features for public sector needs.
  • Lead integration of AI/ML models and custom data pipelines for mission-critical operations.
  • Facilitate the adoption of Salesforce in field operations and secure environments through targeted solutions.
  • Work with customer IT teams to expedite production go-lives and regulatory compliance.
  • Share insights with the Salesforce community to improve government innovation initiatives.
  • Translate operational priorities into actionable technical roadmaps and solutions.

Benefits

  • Time off programs and paid parental leave.
  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
  • Mental health support and employee well-being resources.
  • Life and disability insurance.
  • 401(k) retirement plan with company matching.
  • Employee stock purchasing plan.
Full Job Description
To get the best candidate experience, please consider applying for a maximum of 3 roles within 12 months to ensure you are not duplicating efforts.

Job Category
Software Engineering

Job Details

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.

#LI-Y

This candidate must be a U.S. citizen (U.S. born or naturalized) who does not hold dual citizenship and agrees to complete a U.S. federal government Minimum Background Investigation (MBI) for a Moderate Public Trust position.

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ExactTarget is a provider of on-demand email marketing software solutions. Their suite of on-demand one-to-one marketing applications enables clients to send business-critical and event-triggered communications to increase sales, optimize marketing investments, and strengthen customer relationships. They offer four editions of their on-demand software application along with integrated solutions such as ExactTarget for AppExchange and ExactTarget for [Microsoft](/organization/Microsoft) Dynamics CRM.

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