Direct mentorship from the founders. Real public-safety advisory work. A cohort small enough that the standard never slips. Inaugural cohort applications open Fall 2026.
Both of us started in this industry because someone took a chance on us. A supervisor who answered the question nobody else had time for. A senior engineer who handed over the keys and stayed in the room while we figured out the system. A program director who put us on the dispatch floor at twenty-three and trusted us to learn. Most students never hear that this industry exists. We did. And we got mentored by people who cared whether we became practitioners or quit. Sentinel Vanguard exists because we believe the next generation of public-safety technology leaders should be discovered earlier, mentored harder, and shown what consequence work actually looks like before they pick the wrong corporate track. We are personally invested in every cohort. Not as a recruiting pipeline. As a craft we are obligated to teach.
Primary mentor for cohort members focused on program management, organizational change, and operations-side disciplines.
Primary mentor for cohort members focused on engineering, systems integration, and technology-side disciplines.
Justin Scott & Jason Floyd · Managing Partners
Most universities do not teach this discipline. Most career fairs do not name it. Most engineering students graduate without knowing it exists. And yet every emergency call answered, every officer dispatched, every fire truck rolled, every ambulance routed, and every record entered in this country runs on public-safety technology that someone built, integrated, configured, and now operates. The work is real. The scale is national. The career runway is decades long. The talent shortage is acute. And the people inside the industry have been wondering for years why nobody from the outside ever applies.
Vanguard members contribute to active Sentinel engagements under direct supervision from the founders. Not every task is customer-facing. None of it is busy work.
RAID logs, decision trees, status reports, executive briefings. The documentation programs survive on.
Supporting role on agency-side workshops, interviews, and stakeholder mapping sessions. You will listen first.
Helping refine SDF, SRM, SDB, and SVA artifacts under the practitioners who created them.
Hands-on work on systems Sentinel touches. You will not ship to production, but you will see how production decisions get made.
Council memos, board updates, vendor accountability letters. Drafted by you, edited by the founders, signed when the standard is met.
A published deliverable presented to the Sentinel Advisory Bench in the final week of the cohort. Yours by name.
Most internships teach surface skills. Vanguard teaches the underlying disciplines. Methodology. Documentation craft. Procurement reality. Communications under scrutiny. The judgment that distinguishes a practitioner from a person with a title.
Every Vanguard cohort member is paired with one of the Managing Partners as their primary mentor for the duration of the program. Weekly one-on-ones. Direct review of every artifact. Personal accountability for cohort development. Each cohort member is also paired with a named bench advisor selected from the Sentinel Advisory Bench based on the member's discipline focus. Sitting fire chiefs. Former law enforcement executives. P25 and LMR specialists. Jail and corrections leaders. Government procurement attorneys. Mission-critical software practitioners.
Weekly one-on-one with primary mentor (Justin or Jason)
Bi-weekly full-cohort working sessions
Monthly advisory bench guest sessions with rotating discipline focus
Twice-cohort field exposure visits to agency sites
Final-week capstone presentation to the full bench
A defined structure with intentional constraints. Small by design. Mentor-paired. Outcome-driven.
May through August. Hybrid by default. Remote-capable for academic location flexibility. Optional in-person field exposure to agency sites. Quarterly in-person cohort gatherings at Sentinel offices.
Selectivity is intentional. Mentorship cannot scale to large groups, and the standard we hold cannot be diluted. Cohort members are selected by Justin and Jason personally.
Presented to the Sentinel Advisory Bench in week twelve. Yours by name. A working artifact, not a slide deck. Compensation is paid and market-competitive.
Vanguard is open to current undergraduates and recent graduates from any institution. No prior public-safety industry experience is required. We are training for the industry, not requiring it as input. What we look for is harder to teach than industry knowledge.
Current undergraduates in junior or senior year, or recent graduates within twelve months of degree conferral
Target academic backgrounds: Engineering, Engineering Management, Computer Science, Project or Program Management, Organizational Change, Technical Communications, Public Administration, Information Systems
US citizens or permanent residents required (CJIS access on agency engagements)
No prior public-safety industry experience required
Demonstrated discipline somewhere: academic, athletic, professional, personal
Curiosity about consequence work, not just employability
Evidence of self-direction
Writing ability. We will read your application carefully and your writing tells us most of what we need to know
Sentinel hires from within when the fit is right. Cohort members who excel become the first practitioners considered when entry-level full-time roles open. We will not promise full-time conversion in advance, because we will not bend the standard to fill a seat, but we will tell every cohort member candidly where they stand and why. For Vanguard alumni who pursue other paths, the program is a discipline accelerator. Methodology fluency. Public-sector exposure. A mentor network that does not expire. Reference letters from Justin and Jason that carry weight inside the industry. The Sentinel Advisory Bench remembers cohort members for years after.
“We are not promising you a job at Sentinel. We are promising you that twelve weeks with us will change how the rest of your career compounds.”
A clear timeline. A defined window. We open applications when the program is built to deliver. The first Vanguard cohort begins May 2027.
October 2026
January 2027
Feb / Mar 2027
May 2027
August 2027
Yes. Sentinel Vanguard is a paid program with market-competitive compensation. We will not ask you to defer income to learn from us.
Hybrid by default and remote-capable. Quarterly in-person cohort gatherings happen at Sentinel offices. Optional field-exposure visits to agency sites are scheduled during the cohort.
Four to six members. Selectivity is intentional. The mentorship we promise cannot scale to large groups.
Applicants must hold US citizenship or permanent residency at the time of application. This requirement comes from CJIS compliance on agency engagements. The program cannot sponsor visas or waive this requirement.
You will contribute to active client deliverables under direct supervision. Some work will be customer-facing. Some will be internal. None of it will be busy work.
Applications for the inaugural cohort open October 2026. Add yourself to the interest list now and we will reach out personally when the application window opens. We will share periodic updates on what the program looks like as it gets closer.
Join the Interest List