Engineering Manager - Defense Systems

Applied Intuition, Inc. is powering the future of physical AI. Founded in 2017 and now valued at $15 billion, the Silicon Valley company is creating the digital infrastructure needed to bring intelligence to every moving machine on the planet. Applied Intuition services the automotive, defense, trucking, construction, mining and agriculture industries in three core areas: tools and infrastructure, operating systems, and autonomy. Eighteen of the top 20 global automakers, as well as the United States military and its allies, trust the company’s solutions to deliver physical intelligence. Applied Intuition is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with offices in Washington, D.C.; San Diego; Ft. Walton Beach, Florida; Ann Arbor, Michigan; London; Stuttgart; Munich; Stockholm; Bangalore; Seoul; and Tokyo. Learn more at applied.co . We are an in-office company, and our expectation is that full-time employees primarily work from their Applied Intuition office 5 days a week. However, we also recognize the importance of flexibility and trust our employees to manage their schedules responsibly. This may include occasional remote work, starting the day with morning meetings from home before heading to the office, or leaving earlier when needed to accommodate family commitments. This in-office expectation does not apply to contractor positions About the role Applied Intuition is powering the future of physical AI, bringing intelligence to every moving machine on the planet. Nowhere are the stakes higher than in defense, where physical AI is reshaping how the United States and its allies deter and win conflicts. Our Forward Deployed Engineering team is where that intelligence meets the real world: deploying and integrating Applied Intuition's tools, operating systems, and autonomy stacks onto defense platforms in challenging operational environments. As the Engineering Manager, you'll lead a team of 8-12 Forward Deployed Engineers who each operate like startup CTOs: owning end-to-end execution of high-stakes projects in small teams. Your job is to make this team scale, hiring and developing exceptional engineers, setting technical direction across engagements, and building the repeatable delivery practices that let us bring physical AI to more platforms and more customers without sacrificing quality or speed. This is a high visibility player-coach role in a significant customer-facing, mission-critical environment. You'll represent Applied Intuition with authority in front of defense and government customers, own delivery outcomes across a portfolio of concurrent programs, and serve as the escalation point when projects hit ambiguity, changing requirements, or hard technical tradeoffs. You'll be expected to stay close to the technology, reviewing architectures, pressure-testing integration approaches, and diving in when a program needs it. Fielding intelligent machines is a systems problem spanning software, hardware, and operations, and your team sits at the center of it. At Applied Intuition, you will: Work directly with defense and government customers to deploy, integrate, and operationalize Applied Intuition's vehicle intelligence products in military and government environments, from defense contractors to forward operating bases Tackle a broad range of technical challenges, including software engineering, operating system configuration, system deployment, and hardware integration Bridge customer-built systems and Applied’s solutions to deliver tangible value Design and implement scalable, consistent approaches for customer engagement and project execution Develop architectural solutions that improve consistency and scalability across projects Collaborate with internal engineering, product, and customer teams to ensure successful outcomes Take ownership of technical outcomes and drive projects to completion, adapting to changing requirements and priorities We're looking for someone who has: Production grade SW experience. Has