The posting, in ICEYE's own words
archived Sep 10, 2026Role highlights:
Role: Forward Deployed Backend/DevOps Engineer Location: Portugal (Lisbon) Reports to : VP, Forward Deployed Engineering Working type: Hybrid (On-site at customer locations approx. 50% of time) Must be eligible and able to attain relevant national and NATO security clearances. Must be based in-country and native level speaker of the country you're deploying to.
Why this role matters
In this role, you are the backend and infrastructure backbone defence and intelligence customers rely on. You deploy ICEYE's intelligence platform into secure (often air-gapped) environments and design the high-performance backend systems that move satellite data at scale — fast APIs, resilient services, tuned databases, automated infrastructure. Our stack: Python and Go services on Kubernetes, PostgreSQL and MongoDB, Terraform and Ansible, CI/CD pipelines that also run offline, cloud (AWS) and on-premises air-gapped clusters, with AI-assisted development as the default. This is a ship-daily role: systems you build run mission-critical workloads analysts use to protect nations.
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What you'll own
Platform deployment & operations Deploy ICEYE's intelligence platform into customer secure environments (on-premise, air-gapped networks, classified data centres). Install, upgrade and operate Kubernetes clusters and containerised applications (Docker) in customer environments — cloud and on-premises. Build infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible) and CI/CD pipelines that work without external internet access, including offline registries and artifact mirroring. Troubleshoot deployment and production issues in disconnected environments, from the application layer down to storage and networking. High-performance backend systems Design and build APIs, services and data pipelines that handle large volumes of SAR imagery and intelligence data with low latency. Connect ICEYE systems to customer C4ISR infrastructure and intelligence tools through robust, well-designed integrations. Own database design and performance at production scale (PostgreSQL, MongoDB): schemas, indexing, tuning, replication and backup. Apply caching, queueing and horizontal scaling patterns deliberately — and capacity-plan for fixed on-premises hardware where you cannot simply scale out. Reliability, security & observability Build monitoring, logging and alerting that work in restricted environments, so problems are found before the customer finds them. Harden deployments to meet customer security constraints; own backup, recovery and upgrade paths for systems that cannot go down. Run the infrastructure behind AI workloads shipped by the team — model serving, , GPU nodes — reliably and repeatably. Customer engagement & rapid delivery Work embedded with intelligence analysts, operators and customer IT teams to understand operational and infrastructure requirements. Rapidly prototype and iterate (working systems first, polish later) to address immediate operational needs. Conduct hands-on training for customer administrators on platform operations. Feed deployment experience back to ICEYE's product and engineering teams as concrete technical requirements.