---
title: 'Forward Deployed Software Engineer at ConductorAI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-software-engineer-conductorai-washington-4a91k14bw872'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-08'
---

# Forward Deployed Software Engineer at ConductorAI

- **Company:** ConductorAI
- **Location:** Washington, DC
- **Compensation:** $150k–$220k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-06-11
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/conductorai/9033a187-9713-44ea-aaa2-efad092673c2

## Job description

## INTRODUCTION

We value candidates who have significant experience with managing complexity, working independently, and are motivated by hard problems.

## WHAT WE OFFER

- The ability to have real impact on mission-critical workflows
- The chance to use state-of-the-art tech to solve novel problems with mission partners
- The opportunity to define your role through time as we grow
- Competitive salary and equity upside with annual merit refreshes based on impact

Position Overview

As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will sit at the intersection of engineering and customer partnership. You will be onsite with customers regularly, building trust, diagnosing needs, and translating user feedback directly into product improvements. You are still fundamentally an engineer: you will write code, debug systems, and help shape the architecture of a platform built to leverage LLMs and modern AI application techniques. But you are equally comfortable in a customer briefing room as you are in a terminal.

This role is for someone who finds it energizing to own the full loop: understand the problem, build the solution, deploy it, and watch it create value for users in real time. You should be comfortable with ambiguity, have a bias for action, and take pride in the quality and reliability of what you ship. You will work on a small, tight-knit team and will be expected to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to users and stakeholders with varying levels of technical fluency.

As an early team member, you will also help shape our culture, processes, and product direction. We expect you to measure your work by impact, not activity.

Location

Washington, DC area. Up to 40% travel domestically and OCONUS.

## Key Responsibilities

- Go onsite to customer environments to configure, optimize, and support ConductorAI software, including customizing workflows for specific customer use cases and troubleshooting the system
- Write and maintain production-quality code in Python and TypeScript within a small engineering team
- Work directly with users to gather feedback, understand workflows, and translate insights into actionable product requirements
- Debug and improve system reliability, performance, and usability based on real-world customer usage
- Build and deliver technical demonstrations to new and existing customers
- Collaborate with the product and engineering team to develop new features, with a direct line from customer need to shipped capability
- Identify opportunities to automate manual processes and improve operational efficiency at customer sites
- As a core team member, contribute to company strategy, culture, and evolving responsibilities as we grow

## Qualifications

- Active DoD Secret clearance or higher required at time of hire; required due to the classified nature of work performed under US government contracts
- US citizenship required by applicable federal law and government contract obligations (ITAR/EAR); we are unable to consider green card holders or sponsor visas for this role
- 2+ years of professional software engineering or forward deployed engineering experience
- Proficiency in Python and TypeScript
- Experience working directly with end users or customers in a technical capacity
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences
- Comfort operating with high autonomy in ambiguous, fast-moving environments
- Experience with LLMs and modern AI application techniques
- Ability to travel up to 40% domestically and OCONUS

Desired Qualifications

- Active TS or TS/SCI clearance
- Experience in defense, intelligence, or national security environments
- Experience at an early-stage startup or in fast-moving, ambiguous environments
- Background in system design or full-stack development
- Existing relationships with DoD or civil agency stakeholders

## Compensation

The base salary range for this role is $150,000-220,000, with the opportunity for meaningful equity commensurate with a Series A stage opportunity. Candidates with an active TS or TS/SCI clearance may be eligible for compensation at the higher end of the range. Starting pay will be based on qualifications, experience, and location. This range reflects base salary only and does not include equity or other compensation components.

ConductorAI is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

## About ConductorAI

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: ConductorAI builds an AI-powered platform called Conduit that helps large organizations, especially the U.S. government, navigate complex policies and approvals to move decisions from months to minutes.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A)
- **Headquarters**: Scarborough, Maine, United States
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: Ben Fichter (Co-Founder), Eric Schwartz (Co-Founder and COO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industries**: Government technology (Defense, Intelligence, Civilian Agencies), Legal & Compliance (e-discovery, FOIA, ITAR), Enterprise workflow automation.
- **Target customers**: B2G (U.S. Department of Defense, civilian agencies, intelligence community) and B2B (commercial organizations with complex approval processes).
- **Mission**: Help the government move faster by cutting through red tape and accelerating secure information sharing.

## Products & Services
- **Conduit Platform** – AI-powered workflow orchestration and agentic search platform that ingests complex policy documents and enables experts to encode processes into intuitive, AI-augmented decision trees. Supports security classification, FOIA review, e-discovery, investigations, ITAR compliance, foreign disclosure, and foreign military sales. Available via APIs and deployed in Green, Red, and Yellow enclaves with FedRAMP High accreditation.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding of $23M (conflicting reports: $15M Series A led by Lux Capital in April 2025, plus additional investment from Booz Allen Ventures in July 2025; other sources cite $23M from Lux Capital and a16z) [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/conductor-ai) [jobs.ashbyhq.com](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/conductorai)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Lux Capital, a16z (Andreessen Horowitz), Booz Allen Ventures.
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew 52.4% year-over-year to 16 employees; 8 active job postings as of mid-2026; product deployed in the most sensitive government environments; FedRAMP High accredited.

## Competitive Advantages
- **FedRAMP High Authorization** – Allows deployment in top-secret and classified environments, a significant barrier to entry.
- **Dual-Use Platform** – Serves both government and commercial customers, reducing dependency on single market cycles.
- **Microservice Architecture** – Built for complex, air-gapped environments with robust CVE mitigation, hardened images, and support for multiple LLMs.
- **Agentic Search & Workflow Orchestration** – Differentiates by combining AI search with policy-encoded decision trees, enabling rapid, auditable approvals.

## Strategic Focus
- **Current priorities**: Expand across U.S. civilian agencies and commercial sectors; deepen capabilities in security classification, FOIA, and foreign disclosure; maintain FedRAMP compliance and expand to international allied governments.
- **Growth direction**: Scaling the Conduit platform as a standard for AI-augmented bureaucratic processes, with a clear path to becoming the operating system for government approvals.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture highlight**: Mission-driven, early-stage startup focused on making a tangible impact on national security and government efficiency. Described as “building on the cutting edge of AI-powered decision making for Defense, Intelligence, USG Civilian, and Commercial customers.”
- **Remote/hybrid policy**: Remote-first company operating on East Coast hours with a hub in NYC; hybrid presence in Washington, DC. Open positions are listed as hybrid (NY, DC, or Maine) and some remote.
- **Notable perks/engineering culture**: Equity is offered; salary ranges for engineering roles from $150K–$220K. Engineering team works on microservice architecture, multiple LLM integrations, and high-security deployments. Teams are small (16 people) with high autonomy and close collaboration with founders.

## Sources
1. [jobs.ashbyhq.com](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/conductorai)
2. [conductorai.com](https://www.conductorai.com/)
3. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/conductor-ai)
4. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/conductorai)
5. [conductorai.co](http://conductorai.co/)

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