---
title: 'Forward Deployed Engineer (Commercial / International) at Istari Digital'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineer-commercial-international-istari-digital-seattle-v51bgw0vqr0h'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-12'
---

# Forward Deployed Engineer (Commercial / International) at Istari Digital

- **Company:** Istari Digital
- **Location:** Seattle, WA
- **Compensation:** $143k–$165k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-07-21
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/istaridigital.ai/db4b846a-80d8-4ffa-bcb6-abaebabf5667

## Job description

We are seeking a highly motivated and technically proficient Forward Deployed Engineerto join our team. In this role, you will leverage state-of-the-art digital engineering tools—including CAD, CFD, FEM, and others—along with industry-leading software development best practices to address and advance the digital engineering needs of our customer organizations. You will work on-site within our customer teams to understand their challenges, deliver tailored engineering solutions, and drive successful technology adoption. While embedded with customers, you will report to and maintain close communication with our internal Istari team, ensuring alignment with company standards and strategic objectives.

## Key Responsibilities

- Customer Engagement & Technical Support: Collaborate directly with customer organizations to assess, design, and implement digital engineering solutions. Act as the primary technical liaison, addressing customer inquiries and troubleshooting issues related to digital engineering tools and software. Provide training, guidance, and best-practice recommendations to customer teams to enhance their digital engineering capabilities.
- Digital Engineering & Software Development: Utilize digital engineering tools (CAD, CFD, FEM, etc.) to analyze and simulate engineering designs and processes. Develop, test, and maintain software solutions that integrate with digital engineering workflows, following modern software development best practices. Document technical solutions, create user manuals, and produce training materials for both internal teams and customers.
- Collaboration & Reporting: Work closely with the Istari team, reporting progress, sharing insights, and aligning customer projects with our overall technical strategy. Participate in internal reviews, strategy sessions, and knowledge-sharing initiatives to continuously improve our offerings. Assist in the development of proposals and technical solutions for new business opportunities.
- Continuous Learning & Innovation: Stay updated on emerging trends and technologies in digital engineering and software development. Identify opportunities to integrate innovative tools and methodologies into customer solutions and internal processes.
- Up to 50% travel to customer sites, including International accounts in Australia

Required Qualifications

- Education & Experience: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in software engineering, computer science or Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, with strong coding abilities. Proven hands-on experience with digital engineering tools such as CAD, CFD, FEM, or similar simulation/analysis software. Demonstrated expertise in applying software development best practices, including coding, testing, Kubernetes and version control. Previous experience in a customer-facing role, technical consulting, or engineering services is highly desirable.
- Technical & Interpersonal Skills: Strong analytical, problem-solving, and critical-thinking abilities. Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the capacity to translate technical concepts to non-technical audiences. Ability to work independently, manage multiple projects simultaneously, and thrive in a fast-paced environment. Willingness and ability to travel and embed with customer organizations as needed.
- Must be a U.S. citizen with no dual citizenship.

## Preferred Qualifications

- Familiarity with agile software development and DevOps methodologies.
- Experience mentoring or training technical teams in digital engineering or software practices.
- Industry certifications or specialized training in digital engineering tools (e.g., advanced CAD, CFD, or FEM certifications).

## 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)

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