Senior/Staff Forward Deployed Engineer

The posting, as Twenty wrote it

ABOUT THE COMPANY

America is under sustained cyber attack. Our adversaries infiltrate our networks, steal our IP, and degrade the digital infrastructure that modern life runs on. They’ve learned—correctly—that those attacks rarely produce consequences.

Twenty was founded to change that, by making our adversaries think twice before they attack us. Our vision is American and allied primacy in cyberspace—a future where they cannot contest us, deterrence is assured, and the free world remains secure.

Founded in 2024, Twenty Technologies (www.twenty.io http://www.twenty.io) industrializes offensive cyber operations for the U.S. and its allies. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, Twenty has raised $168M from Khosla Ventures, Accel, Caffeinated Capital, Friends & Family Capital, Point72 Ventures, General Catalyst, and In-Q-Tel.

Mission | On Site | Full Time | Active TS/SCI with CI Polygraph

ROLE SUMMARY

You'll be on the ground at a government customer site, serving as a generalist engineering presence for Twenty's mission-critical platform in a restricted, air-gapped environment. Twenty builds software for cyber operations, and the applications you'll extend and operate are used by operators and analysts working against hard national security problems.

This is the broadest engineering role at Twenty. In a given month you might build a customer-specific feature, integrate a new data source, get an extension through the customer's deployment process, chase down a production failure, tune the monitoring that would have caught it sooner, and prototype an AI-backed capability with support from Arlington. You won't be an expert in all of it, and the role isn't designed to require that. For specialist work like data engineering and AI engineering, you'll deliver with guidance from the Arlington engineers who specialize in it. What the role does require is range: the ability to pick up an unfamiliar part of the system, get productive quickly, and produce work that holds up in production.

The office-based team can't access this environment, so you are the engineering presence where the software actually runs. Problems reach you first, and the judgment calls are yours: what's wrong, what's urgent, and what Arlington needs to know. When customer work is quiet, you'll build features for Twenty's core product applications, carrying what you learned in the field directly into the product.

You'll report directly to the VP of Engineering. You'll be part of a small forward deployed team, working closely with other on-site colleagues, the Arlington-based product engineering and DevSecOps teams, and the customer's own technical staff.

If you're a strong generalist who wants your work in the hands of operators the same day you build it, and you'd rather own a production system end to end than ship features into a backlog, this role is for you.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

CUSTOMER-SPECIFIC FEATURES & EXTENSIONS

• Design

[…]
CS, RDS, CloudWatch) in closed enclave environments

• Containers: Docker, Docker Compose
• Observability: Grafana, Loki, Tempo, Mimir (LGTM stack)
• Alerting / on-call: PagerDuty
• Messaging: NATS
• Databases: PostgreSQL
• Data integration: Twenty's purpose-built data platform and integration layer (in active development)
• Languages in use across engineering: Go, TypeScript, Python

SECURITY / WORK ENVIRONMENT

This role requires an active security clearance. Work is performed on-site at a government facility, with travel to Twenty's Arlington, VA office typically 4 days per month. Access to systems is restricted and tooling constraints apply.

Benefits
What's on the table:

• Health. Medical, dental, and vision plan options. Life / AD&D, disability coverage options.
• Family. Paid parental leave for eligible full-time employees. 12 weeks for birthing parents, 4 for non-birthing parents, 6 weeks for adoptive, foster, or intended parents through surrogacy.
• Vacation. Paid holidays and flexible PTO. Take what you need.
• Retirement. 401(k) with pre-tax and Roth options. HSA/FSA options, dependent care FSA.

Benefits vary by location, role, and eligibility. Full plan details provided during the interview and offer process.

If this role sounds like you, apply and share with us your interest

Due to U.S. government contract and security requirements, this role is limited to U.S. citizens. Some positions may also require eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance. Any active clearance requirement will be listed in the role description.

Twenty is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected status, consistent with applicable law.

If you need a reasonable accommodation during the hiring process, let us know and we will work with you.