# Forward Deployed Engineer, Federal at Cape

- Company: Cape
- What the company does: Cape is the AI platform for partnerships, warm intros, and event marketing — built for teams whose revenue runs on relationships. Backed by Pear VC.
- Company website: https://joincape.ai/
- Type: Startups (AI role)
- Level: Mid level
- Location: Arlington, VA
- Work setup: Remote
- Pay: $175K to $235K base salary per year (USD)
- Posted: 2026-06-09
- Apply by: 2026-10-08
- Apply: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/cape/8ea483bd-4753-45e3-933f-075412844a02
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/cape-forward-deployed-engineer-federal/

## About the role

Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) are the technical operators who ensure Cape’s products actually work in the field for the customers who depend on them most. In a world of demo-ware and big promises, FDEs delivers tangible outcomes: they embed with federal customers, translate ambiguous mission needs into working software, and feed hard-won demand signal back into product and engineering.

## What they're looking for

- Required
- 2+ years of experience in a software engineering or forward deployed engineering role
- Demonstrated technical competency across multiple domains—a “Swiss army knife” profile who can credibly code, debug networking issues, reason about systems-level tradeoffs, and learn quickly
- Strong ability to scope ambiguous problems, sequence delivery, and make sound prioritization calls without explicit instruction
- Excellent written and verbal communication, able to brief a flag officer, write a clear engineering ticket, and run a customer working session with equal fluency
- High ownership and resourcefulness—comfort with the parts of the job that aren’t glamorous, and a track record of doing whatever needs to be done to deliver

Tags: Engineering