--- title: 'Digital Engineering Manager at Istari Digital' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/digital-engineering-manager-istari-digital-united-states-6z3jbwajj18z' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-07' --- # Digital Engineering Manager at Istari Digital - **Company:** Istari Digital - **Location:** United States - **Compensation:** $145k–$215k - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-09-02 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-07 - **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/istaridigital.ai/7abcf9ae-b3ce-4d9b-8e90-bfd0fcc07ed2 ## Job description We are seeking a Digital Engineering Manager to serve as a key leader within Istari’s Customer Success Digital Engineering organization. This role operates under the Director of Digital Engineering and takes ownership of a portion of day-to-day execution while helping shape strategy, technical direction, and team growth. You will manage and mentor Forward Deployed Engineers building software with the Istari Platform while remaining deeply engaged in architecture, technical decision-making, and customer-facing problem solving. Core Responsibilities: Technical & Program Leadership - Own technical execution for a subset of Digital Engineering initiatives and programs - Contribute thought leadership around the Istari platform, its applications, and required capabilities - Help define product scope and technical approach for new digital engineering capabilities - Review designs, architectures, and implementations to ensure quality, scalability, and alignment with Istari’s platform vision - Serve as a technical escalation point for complex engineering and integration challenges ## Team Leadership & Management - Manage and mentor a team of Forward Deployed Engineers - Drive execution across multiple concurrent efforts, including planning, prioritization, and delivery - Provide technical coaching, design and code feedback, and career development guidance - Help scale lean, effective team processes as the organization grows Cross-Functional & Customer Engagement - Partner with cross-functional teams to translate customer needs into clear, executable technical plans - Support customer engagements requiring deep digital engineering expertise - Communicate technical tradeoffs effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders Strategic Support & Direction - Take on delegated responsibilities from the Director of Digital Engineering - Help define standards, best practices, and reusable technical patterns - Identify gaps in tooling, process, and team capabilities and propose improvements - Serve as a thought partner on the future of digital engineering at Istari—enabling engineers to “conduct the orchestra” of tools, not just play a single instrument Qualifications: - 7+ years of experience in engineering (aerospace, systems, mechanical, electrical, or similar) - 3+ years of experience leading or managing technical teams - Understanding of software fundamentals (APIs, data pipelines, services, integrations) - Experience working with engineering tools and ecosystems such as: - MBSE (e.g., Cameo, SysML) - CAD/PLM (e.g., CATIA, Teamcenter, similar) - Document and requirements systems - Simulations (FEA, CFD, etc) - Proven ability to balance hands-on technical work with people leadership - Excellent communication skills—able to explain complex technical concepts clearly ## Preferred Qualifications - Experience in aerospace, defense, or other complex engineered systems - Exposure to model extraction, automation, and digital thread concepts - ## Experience working in product or platform-based environments - Comfort operating in ambiguity and shaping roles, processes, and scope as the organization evolves Why This Role? This role is critical to scaling Istari’s Digital Engineering capability. You won’t just run a team—you’ll help define how digital engineering is practiced at Istari, enabling engineers to move faster, integrate better, and solve harder problems. You’ll have real ownership, real influence, and a direct partnership with the Director of Digital Engineering to shape the future of the organization. Why Istari? We've built a team of what we call Wizards -- people who bring depth in their domain and range across others, who are collaborative without being deferential, and who genuinely care about what we're building. We celebrate individual contributions, give feedback early and often, and argue about ideas so we can execute together. There's no room here for hierarchy for its own sake, or for busywork that doesn't move the mission. We are outcomes-driven, and we hold each other to a high standard — with genuine respect for each person's expertise and wellbeing. Focus is rewarded.  Finish is remembered. Facts are friendly.  Even when they are not fun. Fellowship is fundamental.  Make others successful. ## About Istari Digital ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Istari Digital provides a digital engineering infrastructure platform that connects and validates engineering data across fragmented environments for mission-critical industries like aerospace, defense, and energy. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series A‑II; venture-backed) - **Headquarters**: Arlington, Virginia, United States - **Founded**: 2022 - **Founders**: Dr. Will Roper (CEO) and Christopher Benson (CTO) ## Core Business - **Primary industries**: Aerospace, defense, space, energy, transportation, critical infrastructure - **Target customers**: Enterprise and government organizations in “no‑fail” sectors (e.g., Lockheed Martin, Blue Origin) - **Mission**: “Level the digital playing field in no‑fail industries” – enabling secure, auditable, and AI‑native engineering workflows without centralizing sensitive data ## Products & Services - **[Istari Digital Platform](https://www.istaridigital.com/product)**: A digital infrastructure that securely routes engineering data across tools, teams, and classification boundaries. It connects models, simulations, and workflows to enable real‑time collaboration, system validation, and compliance certification – all while keeping data under the owner’s control. (Type: SaaS / Platform) ## Market Standing - **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total funding – $55.05M (per CBInsights) or $40.1M (per LinkedIn); conflicting reports may reflect different round definitions - **Notable Investors**: Icon Ventures, Teamworthy Ventures, Eric Schmidt, AeroX Ventures, Radius Capital - **Growth Signals**: - Headcount of 64 employees (+61.5% year‑over-year) - LinkedIn followers grew 48.1% in the past year - Acquired Istari Federal LLC and Dgraph (2025) - Customers include Lockheed Martin and Blue Origin - 27 patents filed (as of early 2025) ## Competitive Advantages - **Built for no‑fail industries**: The platform is designed for environments where failure is not an option (fighter jets, satellites, critical infrastructure), giving it a deep credibility moat. - **Secure collaboration without compromise**: Enables cross‑organization, cross‑classification collaboration while allowing each party to retain control of their own data – a key differentiator in defense and regulated sectors. - **Agentic engineering & AI‑native workflows**: Integrates AI into engineering validation and certification, reducing cycles from months to minutes. - **Founders with domain expertise**: CEO Will Roper was the former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics; CTO Christopher Benson brings deep technical experience from hyperscalers and defense programs. ## Strategic Focus - Scaling the platform to serve more mission‑critical industries (air, sea, space, energy, transportation) - Deepening AI capabilities for automated validation, compliance, and certification - Expanding through acquisitions (Istari Federal, Dgraph) to strengthen federal presence and graph‑based data capabilities - Building a distributed workforce with offices in Arlington (HQ), Cambridge (MA), and remote roles across the US ## Why Work Here - **Mission‑driven culture**: Employees work on genuinely hard, unsolved problems in decentralized data sovereignty, AI engineering, and cross‑domain security – with direct impact on national security and critical infrastructure. - **Remote‑friendly**: Many roles are listed as remote (anywhere US) or hybrid (DMV area); on‑site options exist in Huntsville, AL and Seattle, WA. - **Diverse team background**: The team comes from defense, industry, academia, government, and startups – “everyone’s background is a feature, not a footnote.” - **Growth trajectory**: Rapid headcount growth, recent acquisitions, and strong investor backing suggest a high‑growth environment with ample career development opportunities. - **Engineering culture**: Emphasis on deep curiosity, craft, and solving problems that matter; the platform is built by people who have lived the pain of manual, siloed engineering workflows. ## Sources 1. [Istari Digital – Company & Product Overview](https://www.istaridigital.com/) 2. [Istari Digital – About (Founders, Mission, Culture)](https://www.istaridigital.com/about) 3. [Istari Digital – Product Page](https://www.istaridigital.com/product) 4. [Istari Digital – Careers (Lever)](https://jobs.lever.co/istaridigital.ai/) 5. [CBInsights – Company Profile & Financials](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/istari-1) 6. [LinkedIn – Istari Digital Company Page](https://linkedin.com/company/istaridigital) ## Other roles at Istari Digital - [Sr. Infrastructure Engineer - Deployment Team](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-infrastructure-engineer-deployment-team-istari-digital-united-states-z1jrgc0beb6v) — United States - [Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer - Deployment Team](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-forward-deployed-engineer-deployment-team-istari-digital-united-states-38qa68a77678) — United States - [Sr. Product Engineer -- Data Platform](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-product-engineer-data-platform-istari-digital-united-states-vzvxwqj8fm5z) — United States - [Sr. Product Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-product-manager-istari-digital-united-states-3n8gmm7ermja) — United States - [Product Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/product-specialist-istari-digital-united-states-es527fgbry5w) — United States - [Technical Support Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-support-engineer-istari-digital-united-states-xga1dwkn9zkz) — United States - [Sr. Platform Engineer (Integrations Platform)](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-platform-engineer-integrations-platform-istari-digital-united-states-ks352k0dw8qv) — United States - [Field Marketing Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/field-marketing-manager-istari-digital-united-states-xp0v7xngmary) — United States - [Digital Marketing and Content Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/digital-marketing-and-content-specialist-istari-digital-united-states-vryrpfnjq741) — United States - [Sr. Cloud Infrastructure Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-cloud-infrastructure-engineer-istari-digital-united-states-0sxav9qdb7vt) — United States