Cohere opens an Ottawa office near federal buyers, with forward deployed engineer roles open there

Cohere announced on October 8, 2026 that it is opening its third Canadian office, after Toronto and Montreal, next to Lansdowne Park in Ottawa's Glebe neighbourhood. BetaKit reports the space will be used by the nearly 30 Cohere employees already in the Ottawa region, working in go-to-market, engineering, infrastructure and security.

Cohere didn't give a hiring target, but a spokesperson said it will tap Ottawa's talent pool as it grows there, and its public job postings include forward deployed engineer roles based in the city. Its Sovereign AI FDE posting describes working directly with Canadian public sector customers and deploying its North agent platform in private cloud and on-premises environments, with 20-40% travel and Top Secret clearance strongly preferred.

Why it matters for FDEs: government AI work tends to put engineers next to the customer, because procurement, security review and on-premises deployment don't happen remotely. Cohere's move is another sign that sovereign and public sector AI is becoming its own FDE niche, where clearance and comfort with locked-down environments count as much as model skills.