Role overview

Scale AI’s Public Sector business is expanding as government agencies adopt AI for national security, defense, and public sector missions. This is a hands-on Engineering Manager position leading the Frontier AI Infrastructure team, blending technical contribution with leadership responsibilities on a 50/50 basis between coding and people management.

Key responsibilities

Lead, hire, and develop a team of software engineers while managing performance reviews and career growth planning.
Own the model inference layer, including debugging state-of-the-art AI tools, managing networking, addressing latency issues, and monitoring pricing and usage metrics.
Set technical direction and quarterly priorities for the inference infrastructure while ensuring accountability to customer and contract commitments.
Manage operational team functions including sprint planning, on-call rotations, incident reviews, and postmortems.
Partner with Product, Program, and Deployed Engineering teams to translate customer and mission requirements into actionable roadmap priorities.
Engage directly with government stakeholders and cloud vendors to troubleshoot platform issues and manage critical escalations.
Design and implement secure, scalable backend systems for Public Sector customers using Scale’s cloud-native AI infrastructure, and maintain code review, debugging, and meaningful technical contributions throughout.

Requirements

Minimum 1-2 years of direct people management experience leading software engineers, including hiring, performance management, and career development, combined with a strong background as a hands-on individual contributor.
An active Secret clearance with ability and willingness to upgrade to TS/SCI with Counterintelligence Polygraph examination; this is mandatory and candidates without at least Secret clearance will not be considered.
Demonstrated commitment to remaining hands-on with code and technical work; this role is not purely people-focused leadership.
Proficiency in full-stack development across front-end and back-end systems, modern web frameworks, programming languages, and databases; experience with air-gapped and isolated environments is advantageous.
Knowledge of cloud-native technologies including containerization and orchestration platforms, plus familiarity with AWS, Azure, or GCP deployment environments.
Experience with federal compliance frameworks such as Cloud SRG, FedRAMP, and STIG Benchmarks, and a proven ability to deliver solutions meeting strict security and regulatory requirements.
Ability to work 3-4 days per week from the Washington, DC office.

What makes this role worth considering

This position sits at the intersection of critical national security infrastructure and cutting-edge AI technology, where your technical leadership directly impacts how government agencies deploy advanced models. The 50/50 split between hands-on engineering and team leadership allows experienced developers to grow into management without losing technical credibility or involvement, while working alongside engineers solving complex, mission-critical infrastructure challenges.