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Deployed Engineer, Federal

Cognition · Washington DC, United States

Location
Washington DC, United States
Workplace
Hybrid
Employment
Full time
Level
Mid level
Posted
8 months ago

About this role

We are an applied AI lab building end-to-end software agents.

We're the makers of Devin, the first AI software engineer.

Our team is extremely talent-dense. Among our founding team, we have world-class competitive programmers, former founders, and leaders from companies at the cutting edge of AI including Scale AI, Palantir, Cursor, Waymo, Tesla, Lunchclub, Modal, Google DeepMind, and Nuro.

Building Devin is just the first step - our hardest challenges still lie ahead. If you’re excited to solve some of the world’s biggest problems and build AI that can reason on real-world tasks, apply to join us.

About the Role

This is an unparalleled opportunity to join our team as a foundational engineer in our newly formed federal group. As one of the very first engineers in this critical space, you will not only be instrumental in shaping the technical direction and initial project successes but will also play a key role in the strategic growth and scaling of the entire federal engineering organization, establishing core engineering practices, defining our technical stack for federal clients, and directly influencing the culture of a fast-growing, mission-driven team. Your early contributions and leadership will be essential in defining the trajectory of our federal sector, making this an unparalleled opportunity for high-impact ownership and professional development.

Deployed Engineers bring technical depth to Cognition’s most federal enterprise engagements.

You’ll own a narrow set of strategic accounts, tackling the hardest problems - whether that’s architecting a deployment, building an integration, or debugging something no one else can figure out.

A core part of this role is shaping the product. You'll identify patterns from the field, build on the product edge to unblock customers, and translate those learnings into requirements that inform what core engineering builds next. When customers hit friction that the product doesn’t solve, you’re the person who figures out what should exist - and makes it happen.

You’ll own the technical direction of accounts, making decisions that shape long-term adoption, architecture, and how the Cognition platform evolves in real-world environments.

Core Responsibilities

  • Operate across strategic accounts, providing technical depth on complex engagements

  • Own the technical direction and success of customer accounts and deployments

  • Translate customer pain points into product direction: scope requirements, define solutions, and drive implementation

  • Be the connective link between our Federal GTM team and core product engineering teams.

  • Build product extensions and integrations using Cognition’s APIs and platform primitives

  • Architect and maintain complex enterprise deployments

  • Handle escalated technical issues requiring deep debugging or architectural judgment

  • Be a credible technical voice to engineering on what the field needs

What We Value

  • Technical depth and the judgment that comes from seeing many deployments

  • Product instinct - you synthesize feedback into solutions, not just feature requests

  • Builder mentality - you’d rather ship something than wait for someone else to build it

  • Credibility with engineering teams, both internal and customer-side

  • Comfort operating across many contexts simultaneously

Requirements

  • Strong engineering foundation

  • Have operated cross-functionally - whether at a startup wearing multiple hats or by driving product/commercial thinking at a larger company

  • Experience working within the government or working in a government focused company.

  • Have a track record of pursuing excellence at high levels, in any domain

  • Proficiency in Python, TypeScript, or similar; comfort navigating unfamiliar codebases

  • Experience scoping and shipping features in collaboration with product and engineering teams

You might excel if….

  • Have built software at companies known for engineering rigor and want broader impact

  • Track record in forward-deployed engineering, solutions architecture, or similar technical roles

  • Experience with enterprise infrastructure (cloud deployments, networking, security)

  • Want to stay close to customers while shaping how the product evolves

  • Enjoy hard problems without obvious solutions and the autonomy to figure them out

  • Have a high tolerance for ambiguity, intensity, and sustained effort when the problem demands it

Equal Opportunity

Cognition is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities throughout the hiring process - please let us know if you need any.

As published by Cognition. Applications are handled on their site.

Skills this posting mentions

PythonNetworking TechnologiesArtificial Intelligence

About Cognition

Makers of Devin, the first AI software engineer. We are an applied AI lab building end-to-end software agents. We’re building collaborative AI teammates that enable engineers to focus on more interesting problems and empower engineering teams to strive for more ambitious goals.

All 104 openings at Cognition

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Apply to Cognition with a resume written for this role.

Queue Deployed Engineer, Federal and I read the posting, rewrite your resume against it, draft the cover letter, and score the fit. Then you press send, or press one button and I fill in Cognition’s form for you.

  1. 01Drop your resume

    A PDF or a LinkedIn URL. About a minute, once.

  2. 02I rank the openings

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  3. 03Each one is written up

    Resume rewritten for the posting, a cover letter, a fit score. Press send, or let me fill in the form.

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Drop a resume or a LinkedIn URL. I rank the live openings against it, rewrite the resume and write a cover letter for the best of them, and fill in the employer's form when you press the button. You read, you decide what goes out.

  1. 01Drop your resume

    A PDF or a LinkedIn URL. About a minute, once.

  2. 02I rank the openings

    Every weekday morning, the live catalog scored against your history. Up to 20 worth your time, not two hundred links.

  3. 03Each one is written up

    Resume rewritten for the posting, a cover letter, a fit score. Press send, or let me fill in the form.

  • New matches ranked and written before you are up.
  • Every bullet stays inside what your history supports. Nothing invented.
  • Queued, submitted, interviewing, offer: one screen, not a spreadsheet.

500 free credits on sign-up. No card. Nothing is sent until you say so.

Listed from the job board Cognition publishes. Refolk is not the employer and does not handle their hiring. Applications go to Cognition directly.