Senior Forward-Deployed Engineer, Federal

Deepgram is seeking a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer to join our Applied Engineering team, with a focus on federal customers. In this role, you will embed directly with our most strategic federal accounts to lead complex deployments of Deepgram's Voice AI platform in production environments where mission performance matters, delivery is urgent, and ambiguity is the default.

Many of these deployments are on-prem, air-gapped, or on constrained hardware where cloud APIs aren't an option. You'll be one of the first engineers on Deepgram's federal Applied Engineering team, helping define how Voice AI gets deployed across government.

You will own the full technical lifecycle of federal engagements, from initial discovery and proof-of-concept through production deployment and ongoing optimization. You'll map customer problems, structure delivery, and ship solutions fast. This includes scoping, sequencing, and building full-stack integrations that create measurable mission impact while driving clarity across internal and external teams. Along the way, you'll identify reusable patterns, codify best practices, and share field signals that influence Deepgram's product roadmap.

As a member of the Applied Engineering team, you'll serve as the trusted technical thought partner for federal stakeholders, guiding adoption, maximizing operational value, and ensuring successful deployments le your engagements will primarily involve federal customers, you'll remain a core part of the broader Applied Engineering team and may contribute to commercial engagements where your expertise is valuable.

Note:

this role is based remotely out of the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area.

The Applied Engineering (App Eng) team at Deepgram combines the functions that other companies might separate into Sales Engineering, Solutions Architecture, Implementation, Forward-Deployed Engineering, and Technical Support. We serve as the technical interface between Deepgram and our customers throughout their entire journey, from initial discovery and proof-of-concept, through implementation and onboarding, to ongoing technical support. We work closely with our Customer Success and Developer Relations (Dev Rel) teams to ensure a positive, growth-focused experience for our customers, as well as with Product and Engineering teams to deliver solutions that meet customer needs.

This unified approach allows us to provide comprehensive technical guidance and build deeper relationships with our customers.

As a Senior Applied Engineer operating in the FDE role for federal engagements, you'll work with a high degree of autonomy in customer environments that are often on-prem, air-gapped, or hardware-constrained, with strict compliance and security requirements. Your work will directly shape how federal agencies leverage Voice AI to achieve their missions.

• Own technical delivery across federal deployments, from first prototype to stable production
• Embed deeply with federal customers to design and build mission-critical applications powered by Deepgram's Voice AI models
• Deploy and operate Deepgram's models in self-hosted, air-gapped, and edge environments, working within the hardware, network, and accreditation constraints of each customer
• Lead technical discovery and solution design for federal prospects and customers, partnering with Account Executives so that what gets scoped can actually be built and deployed
• Prototype and build full-stack integrations using Python, JavaScript, Rust, or comparable stacks that deliver real mission impact
• Enable successful deployments across customer environments by delivering observable systems spanning infrastructure through applications
• Proactively guide federal stakeholders on maximizing operational value from Deepgram's platform, including performance optimization and deployment strategies
• Scope work, sequence delivery, and remove blockers early, making deliberate trade-offs between scope, speed, and quality
• Build and manage relationships with customer leadership and technical stakeholders to ensure successful deployment and scale
• Contribute directly to code when clarity or momentum depends on it
• Codify working patterns into tools, playbooks, reference architectures, and building blocks the broader team can use
• Share field feedback with Product and Engineering to influence model and product development
• Serve as an escalation point for complex technical issues in federal deployments
• Analyze…