Forward Deployed Engineer

Valarian Technologies is a dual-use technology company building critical tools to safeguard the future in an era of evolving global security challenges. We're rethinking security beyond traditional military domains, addressing asymmetric threats that impact our technological advantage, economic strength, and democratic institutions.

We build Acra – the platform foundation for everything we do as a dual-use technology company. The platform’s name, rooted in the Greek word for citadel (or, fortress), reflects the design and purpose of our infrastructure-agnostic secure enclaves: protecting critical data. Some of the government and commercial workflows include: increased operational resiliency for mission-critical systems and functions; enabling organisations to more quickly and widely adopt emerging technologies while ensuring the integrity of their intellectual property; information flow during disaster response scenarios, and zero-trust / least-privilege environments for M&A, attorney-client privileged communications, etc. And we’ve only scratched the surface.

At our core, we're driven by a shared mission and a belief in making a tangible impact on our world. Whether you join our London HQ or the wider global organisation, you’ll be a part of collaborative, high-performing teams, creating cutting-edge software, platforms, and infrastructure.

The Role

As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will deploy, extend, and integrate our secure Kubernetes platform (ACRA) into real-world customer workflows. You aren't just writing backend services in Go—you are partnering directly with end-users to understand their operational constraints, adapting our containerized workloads to their infrastructure, and feeding crucial feedback back into the core platform team.

You will write production Go, build React frontend components, configure microservices, and orchestrate Kubernetes workloads while collaborating across frontend, core backend, infrastructure, and AI teams to deliver client outcomes.

What you’ll do:

Deploy & Integrate: Build backend microservices, APIs, and Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) in Go to integrate ACRA into diverse customer environments (isolated enclaves, edge clusters, hybrid cloud).

Bridge Product & Customer: Translate ambiguous client security requirements and user workflows into practical technical implementations without waiting for detailed specs.

Kubernetes Application Development: Develop containerized applications, Helm charts, and event-driven microservices running seamlessly on customer K8s platforms.

Collaborate with Specialists: Partner with embedded DevOps/Infra specialists (for base cluster provisioning) and ML/AI engineers (for model harness integration), keeping client value at the center.

Close the Feedback Loop: Identify recurring integration patterns and work with core engineering to turn custom client fixes into standardized platform features.

What we are looking for:

Go & Backend Engineering: Strong hands-on experience building microservices, REST/gRPC APIs, or event-driven backend systems in Go.

Kubernetes Application Logic & Tech Stack: Deep familiarity with Docker, K8s manifests, Helm charts, GitOps workflows (Argo/Flux), relational databases (RDBs), KV Caches, and Event Buses, focusing on building applications for Kubernetes.

Product & Customer Intuition: Demonstrated experience interfacing with external clients, solutions architects, or cross-functional teams to solve real operational problems.

System Design & Security Boundaries: Clear understanding of workload isolation, secrets management, identity-aware communication, and failure domain boundaries.

Pragmatic Ownership: Comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments where debugging spans client applications, networking layers, and platform code.

Benefits:

Our benefits are designed to ensure our employees feel taken care of and are proud to be a part of the Valarian team. We are committed to consistently enhancing our benefit package, taking into account the overall well-being and needs of our teammates. Here are the key benefits accessible to all employees at Valarian Technologies:

Equity – because you have the right to own what you’re building

A competitive salary – because we value your unique skills

Employer pension contributions – because you deserve a secure future

Private health insurance - because your health is important to us

Hybrid work setup – because everyone has different needs

Rewarding company retreats and meetups that respect your work/life balance – because we love getting to know each other!

Life at Valarian

Our culture is built on inclusivity, compassion and flexibility – we want everyone to be empowered to achieve their goals at Valarian.

The work we do is vital, but so are the connections that make it happen. We thrive on the shared energy, spontaneous conversations, and mutual trust built when we spend time together. We operate on a hybrid model, gathering in our London office 3 days a week to support one another and collaborate.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.