Gauntlet for America Fellow
$160K–$200K+ Offers For Graduates $160K–$200K+ Offers For Graduates 

3 weeks remote, 7 weeks onsite in Austin, TX
80–100 hours/week for 10 weeks
In-person
Short-term contract
full-time (90 hrs/week)

Gauntlet for America Fellow   $160K–$200K+ Offers For Graduates $160K–$200K+ Offers For Graduates 

Description

Gauntlet for America is a fully funded, selective 10-week fellowship designed to build AI-native engineering capability for the United States government.

It is a high-intensity proving ground for experienced engineers who want to demonstrate they can build and operate production-grade AI systems in environments where reliability, security, and real-world impact matter.

Fellows ship weekly, operate under strict evaluation, and train alongside other high-performing engineers. Upon successful completion, graduates are placed into federal GS-12 engineering roles (~$150K + full federal benefits), working on systems that directly impact how the government operates.

The program runs 10 weeks: 3 weeks remote, followed by 7 weeks onsite in Austin, Texas. Fellows should expect a high-intensity schedule (80–100 hours/week) designed to maximize learning speed, signal, and career outcomes.

Outcomes:

  • 10+ production-ready AI systems shipped during the fellowship
  • Direct placement into a federal engineering role (GS-12 equivalent, ~$160K–$200K+ depending on experience + full benefits)
  • Work on high-impact systems shaping how the U.S. government builds and operates technology
  • Join a network of AI-native engineers operating at the frontier of public sector innovation

What you will be doing

  • Ship production-ready AI applications every week on strict deadlines
  • Build with modern AI-first workflows (agents, tool use, evals, retrieval, deployment)
  • Collaborate and compete alongside top engineering talent in a high-feedback environment
  • Work with real, ambiguous problem spaces similar to government and enterprise environments
  • Translate real briefs into scoped, reliable, deployable systems

Candidate requirements

  • U.S. citizenship required (no exceptions; background check required)
  • Demonstrated engineering ability (new grads and experienced engineers considered)
  • Willing to relocate to Austin, TX for 7 weeks (full-time, in person)
  • Willing to relocate to the Washington, DC area upon program completion (no remote roles)
  • Strong problem-solving ability, learning speed, and clear reasoning under pressure
  • High responsiveness to feedback and ability to operate in high-intensity environments

Meet a successful candidate

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Fabiano Lucchese
Fabiano  |  SVP of Software Engineering
Brazil

Does your company encourage your natural creativity? This Brazilian engineering leader rediscovered his purpose after unleashing both his an...

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What you will learn

Phase 1: Remote (Weeks 1–3) — AI-First Engineering Foundations

  • AI-first development workflows (coding agents, MCP, real-time collaboration)
  • Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), embeddings, and vector databases
  • Rapid project sprints focused on shipping under constraints

Phase 2: Onsite in Austin (Weeks 4–10) — Production AI at Scale

  • Agent systems, evals, verification, and observability (LangChain/LangSmith/LangFuse/CrewAI)
  • Enterprise-grade delivery: QA, reliability, and high-standards execution
  • Fine-tuning + deployment patterns (LoRA/QLoRA + production integration)
  • Multi-agent modernization of real-world codebases
  • Multimodal AI builds (image/video/voice) and scalable infrastructure (AWS/Azure)

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