Sales Engineer, Embedded AI

Agile Defense

$125K — $155K *
Aerospace & Defense
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 4+ years in sales engineering, solutions architecture, or a related technical pre-sales role, preferably for DoD or federal clients.
  • Ability to engage seamlessly with technical and non-technical stakeholders, including operators and program managers.
  • Hands-on experience in building and demonstrating software, particularly with modern AI systems and APIs.
  • Strong instincts for discovering customer requirements, with an ability to extract valuable insights during discussions.
  • Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, capable of producing technical documentation and proposals that meet scrutiny.
  • Active TS/SCI clearance or the ability to obtain it; willingness to travel to customer sites.

Responsibilities

  • Serve as the technical liaison between customers and Agile Labs, translating needs into actionable solutions with demonstrable capabilities.
  • Engage directly with customers to understand their operational needs and mission problems that require AI-driven solutions.
  • Prototype solutions on the platform stack, proving their effectiveness in real-world contexts for military and intelligence operations.
  • Conduct live demonstrations of AI systems, engaging clients in dialogue and adapting solutions based on their feedback and requirements.
  • Measure success by the quality of presentations and the progression to further customer engagement based on delivered capabilities.

Benefits

  • Hybrid work environment providing flexibility between onsite and remote work.
  • Opportunity to work directly with high-stakes mission-driven customers like the military and intelligence community.
  • Hands-on experience in cutting-edge AI developments applicable to national defense.
  • Professional growth opportunities in a rapidly evolving technology field.
  • Engagement with a collaborative team culture that focuses on customer-centric solutions.
Full Job Description
Requisition #: 1745

Job Title: Sales Engineer, Embedded AI

Location: Hybrid, McLean, VA

Clearance Level: Top Secret, Must Have Ability to Obtain a Clearance

Job Description

Agile Labs is the applied-AI division of Agile Defense. We build non-exquisite AI systems and field them across cloud, on-premises, and air-gapped environments for the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, FBI, SOCOM, and other mission-driven customers. We do this through three integrated teams that operate as a flywheel: Embedded AI proves the need inside operational units, Force-Deployed Engineering proves it works in the field, and Product hardens what works into reusable capability.

The Embedded AI team is the customer-depth team. We embed where decisions actually get made, find the mission problems that do not yet have a repeatable solution, and prototype against them fast using our platform stack. The Sales Engineer is the technical voice in that room - the person who can sit across from an operator or program office, understand the problem in their language, and translate it into a working demonstration of capability inside their mission context. You are the bridge between what the customer needs and what our stack can do, and you carry that translation all the way from first conversation to fielded proof.

This is a hands-on, technical, customer-facing role. It is not a quota-carrying closing seat and it is not a back-office solutions desk. You will spend your time in front of customers and inside our own platform, and you will be measured on whether the capability you put in front of a customer earns the next engagement.

Education and Background

College degree in computer science or relevant field preferred.

Years of Experience

4+ years

Required Skills

  • 4+ years in a sales engineering, solutions architecture, forward-deployed engineering, or technical pre-sales role - ideally serving DoD, IC, or federal civilian customers.
  • The ability to operate at the intersection of deep technical detail and commercial/strategic reasoning, and to move fluidly between an operator, a program manager, and an engineer in the same day.
  • Hands-on technical fluency: comfort building and demonstrating software, working with APIs and integrations, and reasoning about modern AI systems (agents, orchestration, RAG, evaluation) well enough to design a credible demo and defend it under questioning.
  • Strong discovery and requirements instincts - you ask the questions that help a customer think, not the ones that extract free labor from them, and you can write clear functional and non-functional requirements from a messy conversation.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to produce briefs and proposal content that hold up to technical scrutiny.
  • Active TS/SCI clearance, active Secret with the eligibility and willingness to upgrade, or ability to obtain either.
  • Willingness to travel to customer and field sites.


Preferred Skills

  • Direct experience with SOF, SOCOM, or Combatant Command customers, or with the FBI / IC.
  • Familiarity with the federal acquisition landscape: SWP / Software Acquisition Pathway, OTAs, IDIQ vehicles, and the realities of capture and proposal cycles.
  • Working knowledge of accreditation and compliance frameworks relevant to fielding AI in government environments (IL-5, FedRAMP, CMMC, NIST, cATO, OSCAL).
  • Experience building or demonstrating agentic AI, OSINT, C2, or risk-screening capabilities.
  • A background that combines technical delivery with business development or capture instincts - the rarer the combination, the better the fit.


Working Conditions

Office Environment

$125,000 - $155,000 a year

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