Forward Deployed Engineering Manager, AWS US Government

About the role

A Forward Deployed Engineering Manager (FDE Manager) leads a pod of FDEs embedded within strategic enterprise customers, owning delivery execution, engineering quality and team development. FDE Managers lead 5-15 engineers across one or more concurrent customer engagements, representing the FDE team to customer engineering leaders and AWS stakeholders. The position is based in Arlington, Virginia, and requires a US citizen with an active TS/SCI clearance with Polygraph.

Key responsibilities

• Lead FDE pod delivery, staff and structure the team, set execution cadences and ensure consistent engineering quality; up to 25% travel required.
• Provide technical oversight of customer AI programs, review architecture decisions and resolve technical blockers.
• Ensure operational standards, evaluation frameworks and production readiness criteria are met for AI systems built by the team.
• Hire, coach and retain FDE talent, drive performance management and development plans.
• Expand AI adoption within customer engagements and codify learnings into reusable patterns.

Required profile

• 3+ years of engineering team management experience.
• Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics or a related field.
• 7+ years of non-internship professional software development experience.
• Active US Government TS/SCI clearance with Polygraph.
• 3+ years in an Agile, startup or rapidly scaling environment.
• Experience communicating technical concepts to technical and non-technical audiences, including senior leadership.

Required skills

• Experience building or deploying AI/ML applications in production at scale.
• Agentic and spec-driven development (AI agents a plus).
• Preferred: React, TypeScript, Python and/or Go.

What we offer

• Base salary of $184,900-$250,200 USD annually for Arlington, Virginia, plus sign-on payments and RSUs.
• Health, dental, vision and prescription insurance, 401(k) matching, paid time off and parental leave.