EMPLOYER IS A CONTRACTOR FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. THIS POSITION REQUIRES U.S. CITIZENSHIP.
This is a forward-deployed engineering role. You'll work shoulder-to-shoulder with mission heroes- the users, operators, and program engineers who run real workloads in real DoD environments- and lead the software integration of modular Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS) sensors and effectors. You will deploy, harden, integrate, and operate our modular C-UAS solution.
Forward-deployed means aligned with the mission hero, not always on a plane. Most of the work is remote. You'll travel to sites when the engagement genuinely calls for it — initial standup, in-SCIF integration work, on-the-ground incident response, training, and knowledge transfer- and you'll be on a video call or in a shared chat with that same mission hero the rest of the time. The job is being their engineer, not living at their desk.
You are a cross-functional engineering leader. You can take responsibility for the full breadth of a data and software integration platform- make it work where it has to work, analyze what's running through it, and solve problems in real time for the mission hero. About 20% of your time, you'll also help make Defense Unicorns' forward-deployed team better — pairing with junior Data Engineer FDEs on hard problems, helping them develop technical judgment, and raising the ceiling on what the team can take on.
Deploy and harden UDS Data Capability in the mission hero's environment — stand up UDS Store (Iceberg, Rook/Ceph, pgvector, Postgres), wire up UDS Transit for air-gap data movement, configure UDS Govern policies (Pepr/Lula), and integrate UDS Connect (Strimzi/Kafka) where streaming or legacy connectors are required.
Own integration with existing mission systems — connect UDS Data Capability to existing infrastructure, including sensor arrays, computer-vision-enabled UAS interceptors, and a broad range of C-UAS solutions.
Build pipelines that move data through classification boundaries — ingestion, transformation, catalog registration, model/dataset packaging via Zarf, cross-domain transit, and eventual consistency across DDIL conditions.
Operate what you deploy — own initial day-2 operations, including capacity, performance, backup/restore (Velero), observability (Vector/Loki), incident response, and upgrade paths. Transition ownership to the mission hero's operations team once stable.
Generate accreditation artifacts — STIG evidence, cATO documentation, FIPS validation notes, and policy mappings to support ISSM/ISSO requirements in IL4/IL5 environments.
Represent the mission hero to product and engineering — document issues, write postmortems, recommend operator improvements, and communicate field challenges to the platform engineering team.
Train and transfer knowledge — develop runbooks, architecture documentation, working sessions, and knowledge-transfer materials that enable mission teams to operate independently.
Mentor junior Data Engineer FDEs — pair on complex problems, review integration designs, and help engineers develop technical judgment without direct people-management responsibilities.
Clearance: Active TS/SCI required.
Travel: Approximately 10%–25%, based on mission and customer requirements.
On-site expectations: Ability to work in SCIFs and other restricted environments for days or weeks when required for integration, incident response, training, or knowledge transfer. Most work is performed remotely.
The listed responsibilities are not exhaustive, and additional responsibilities may be assigned based on the evolving needs of the organization. We are seeking a dynamic individual who is able to adapt and take on new responsibilities as they arise.
Full compensation packages are based on candidate experience. Compensation ranges are established using national benchmarking data and apply across all geographic locations within the United States.
Defense Unicorns delivers mission value by streamlining software delivery so our customers can focus on the most important challenges. We share a vision of freedom and security for the advancement of progress and innovation. Our commitment to this vision, and to our mission-driven customers, means a commitment to speed, user experience and optionality, without compromising security. Our team is composed of innovators, software engineers, and veterans with decades of experience delivering technology programs across the federal market.
We create and deliver secure solutions for continuous software integration and delivery. Defense Unicorns consolidates the best practices for security pipelines, testing, and deployment automation in order to meet the high security requirements valued by mission owners. Our solutions are agnostic by design and we believe that growing a robust ecosystem of secure, cloud-native software solutions can help enterprise customers inside and outside the federal market buy and integrate software more easily.
Defense Unicorns’ customers are mission-focused leaders across public and private enterprises. We proudly support defense and civil agencies across the U.S. government and we work closely with the creators of leading-edge software solutions to deliver value to the mission-owner by improving the security and consumability of commercial software products.
Don’t have all the preferred experience or qualifications? Studies show that underrepresented groups like women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs if they don't meet every requirement listed.
At Defense Unicorns, we're committed to diversity. If you're enthusiastic about the role but don't match every criteria, we encourage you to apply. You could be the perfect fit for this or another role! Defense Unicorns is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, union status and/or beliefs, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.
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