Principal Forward Deployed Engineer - Remote Role

About the Role

We are seeking a Principal Forward Deployed Engineer to join our team at SpruceID. This fully remote role allows you to operate at the intersection of technical leadership and strategic delivery, focusing on digital identity solutions. As a Principal Forward Deployed Engineer, you will lead high-impact engagements with state governments and public sector partners, ensuring that deployments succeed technically while achieving lasting policy and operational outcomes.

What You'll Do

• Define technical strategy and architecture for public sector deployments, ensuring both technical excellence and alignment with policy and operational needs.
• Act as the senior technical representative in executive-level customer meetings, bridging the gap between technical details and business or policy outcomes.
• Lead multiple end-to-end multi-year projects from rapid prototyping to development to operations and maintenance.
• Architect and build backend systems, full-stack web applications, and mobile solutions with a focus on security, privacy, and accessibility.
• Translate government requirements into robust, standards-based solutions that integrate with both modern and legacy systems.
• Mentor and guide forward deployed engineers and delivery teams, setting standards for high-quality engineering and customer collaboration.
• Identify and drive efficiencies across projects, ensuring knowledge and tooling are shared across teams.
• Collaborate with platform teams to feed customer insights into SpruceID’s roadmap and contributions to global identity standards.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience designing, building, and delivering production-grade software in statically typed languages (Rust, Go, Java, C#).
• Proven ability to lead large-scale engineering efforts that span multiple teams and organizations.
• Strong expertise across the software development stack, including infrastructure, DevOps, architecture, frontend, and mobile.
• Demonstrated experience working with public sector or highly regulated industries, including direct customer engagement at both executive and technical levels.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and consulting skills with the ability to influence strategy as well as execution.
• Based in the US and willing to travel as needed to support state government partners.

Nice to Have

• Experience leading digital transformation or modernization efforts in the public sector.
• Familiarity with procurement, compliance, and governance considerations in state government projects.
• Deep knowledge of digital identity, computer security, cryptography, and user data privacy practices.
• Experience as a Field CTO or similar.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary ranging from $200,000 to $225,000 annually.
• Performance-based bonuses and/or equity components.
• Comprehensive benefits package.
• Fully remote work environment.
• Opportunities for professional growth and development.
• A diverse and inclusive workplace culture.