Forward Deployed Engineer

Albacore Inc. is a Philadelphia-based company building highly-capable, mass-producible drone submarines to defend sovereign waters of America and allied nations. We are backed with more than $10 million from Y Combinator and venture capital investors.

Role description

• Operate, troubleshoot, and maintain vehicle systems during customer engagements, field experiments, and operational evaluations.
• Support mission planning, launch and recovery, payload integration, and system bring-up in dynamic real-world environments.
• Serve as a key bridge between operators and the engineering team by translating field feedback into actionable design, reliability, and usability improvements.
• Collaborate with mechanical, electrical, and software engineers to diagnose issues, validate fixes, and improve vehicle performance across hardware and software.
• Help develop operational concepts, test procedures, training materials, and best practices for vehicle employment with defense users.
• Represent the company professionally in front of military stakeholders, helping build trust through strong technical execution and clear communication.

Desired qualifications

• B.S. or M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Robotics, or related technical field, or equivalent hands-on technical experience.
• 1-7 years of experience in engineering, robotics, unmanned systems, field operations, defense technology, or military technical roles.
• Military background strongly preferred, especially Navy SEAL, Submarine Officer, or EOD/UUV Specialist, or maritime SOCOM experience. Other operational experience relevant to the field will also be considered.
• Experience operating, maintaining, troubleshooting, or supporting robotic, maritime, electromechanical, or autonomous systems in real-world environments.
• Strong communication skills and ability to engage constructively with military operators, program managers, and technical experts.
• Willingness to travel frequently for customer meetings, demonstrations, exercises, testing, and deployed support, including domestically and internationally.
• Comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-paced environments and turning field observations into concrete engineering recommendations.
• U.S. work authorization required, TS/SCI clearance preferred.