> AI agents: this is one page of Nextmove’s FDE site, in Markdown. Nextmove is a job board and free career service for forward deployed engineers (FDEs). Each posting is classified from its text, not its title: the kind of work, how much of it is production code, pre-sales weight, time at customer sites, travel, remote arrangement, level and posted base pay. The site also publishes the aggregates: median pay by level, metro, company and kind of work, and which companies started hiring FDEs each week. Every page under https://nextmove.md/fde is served this way; the index of pages is https://nextmove.md/llms.txt.

# Machine Learning Engineer

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/256996cf2f7be6a4

Adelphi posts a FDE role to build what the customer runs in Washington, DC with no pay posted. This forward-deployed engineering role delivers agentic, full-stack ML systems from prototype through production for defense and intelligence customers. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026.

- [Adelphi](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/adelphi)

Posted Jul 9, 2026 by Adelphi · open on Ashby as of Nov 8, 2026

Pay not posted Washington, DC Hybrid Full-time

This forward-deployed engineering role delivers agentic, full-stack ML systems from prototype through production for defense and intelligence customers.

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F256996cf2f7be6a4&placement=top)
- [View posting at Adelphi](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/adelphi-ai/9f269680-f3dc-4110-a16d-ecb212097483/application)

Free. Upload your resume once, see why each FDE role fits, and get introduced only when you say so.

## At a glance

### Posted base pay

Not posted

Mid-level FDE postings, 106 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $123K to $162K, median $149K.

### The work

Builds what the customer runs

Balance **Mostly building**

Project stages

1. Pre-sales (not covered)
2. Proof of concept
3. Implementation
4. Operations

- **Coding**: Writes production code

- **Builds for**: External customers

- **Level**: Mid

- **Role**: Individual contributor

### Do you meet what the posting states?

The posting reads as a mid-level role. What level are you at now?

The job is in Washington, DC. Could you work there?

Which of these have you used in production?

Answer each one. Nothing is saved or sent.

[What postings ask for, by background →](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths)

## Conditions

- **Location**: Washington, DC

- **Work arrangement**: Hybrid

- **Remote work restrictions**: DC/Metro area; three days per week in office or onsite with customers

- **Employment type**: Full-time

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## The job description from Adelphi

Posted by Adelphi on Jul 9, 2026

**About Adelphi
**Adelphi's Vision is to build the biggest AI Deployment company for National Security, which requires talent that is extremely good at problem solving, gets excited about National Security challenges, and thrives in software factories. We're executing a Mission that (1) Identifies the core bottlenecks in Warfighting, Intelligence and the Enterprise, (2) Assigns top talent with backgrounds in systems and machine learning engineering, and (3) Finds repeatability in solution development to target similar offices across the DoW/IC. The business has 10x'd in under two years and has built trust with the senior most leaders at the Department of War and Intelligence Community.

**About the Role:** The Machine Forward Deployed Learning Engineer position requires a mix of software development, LLM Ops, and SecDevOps practices, resulting in an exciting, fast-paced engineering role. This role requires the ability to contribute to solutions across the full LLM stack, from the OS, storage, and network up to the API and transport layer. Experience in the defense or intelligence fields is required. You will contribute to end-to-end delivery of agentic, full-stack systems built on top of frontier models, from first prototype to stable production, embedded alongside our defense and intelligence customers.

**Location: **This role is based in the DC/Metro area - we follow a hybrid work model with three days per week in office or onsite with customers.

**Clearance Requirement: **An active U.S. Government clearance is required.

### Is this you?

We are an AI-native engineering team. We expect every engineer to leverage LLMs and AI tooling as a core part of how they design, build, ship, and operate agentic systems that turn frontier-model capability into mission outcomes.

- You use AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot) daily and instinctively.
- You leverage LLMs across the development lifecycle, and stay current with emerging models and tooling.
- You have working knowledge of modern agent frameworks and SDKs (LangGraph, OpenAI Agents SDK, Claude Agent SDK, AutoGen, or similar).
- Familiarity with MCP or similar LLM integration frameworks.
- You have a clear-eyed view of AI limitations. You know when to trust AI-generated output and when to verify.

### Expectations

- Contribute to end-to-end delivery of agentic, full-stack systems from prototype to production, embedded alongside defense and intelligence customers.
- Build and deploy ML services leveraging LLMs, embeddings, RAG, and agent orchestration into production environments, including classified and air-gapped ones.
- Work directly with customers to understand problems, support delivery sequencing, and ship AI applications under real-world constraints.
- Help codify repeatable patterns into reusable tools and building blocks that help the team ship faster.

### Bonus Points

- Familiarity with infrastructure management (Docker, Kubernetes, AWS).
- Exposure to encryption, authentication, Linux systems administration, DevOps, or SRE.
- Any production experience with agentic services or forward-deployed AI applications.
- Experience in a customer-facing or embedded delivery role.
- Exposure to federated or privacy-preserving data architectures.

[View posting at Adelphi](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/adelphi-ai/9f269680-f3dc-4110-a16d-ecb212097483/application)

## About Adelphi

Adelphi deploys model-agnostic AI and governed data connectivity for defense and intelligence customers in classified, disconnected environments.

Seed · 1–10 people

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- [Compare mid FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/mid-level)
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