At Defense Unicorns, we make software a strategic deterrent with solutions that promote data independence, portability, and efficiency. Backed by Sapphire.
About the role
Preferred Locations: Colorado Springs, CO or Florida Space Coast (Cape Canaveral / Cocoa Beach / Melbourne). Remote candidates will be considered, but local presence is strongly preferred. Travel Expectations: Candidates based in Colorado Springs or the Florida Space Coast can expect on-site presence 1-2 days per week. Remote candidates should expect to travel to the engagement site for approximately one week every 4-6 weeks.
What they're looking for
- U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain a DoD security clearance. Clearance sponsorship available for the right candidate
- Comfort being the technical face of Defense Unicorns to a mission hero. Clear communication with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Comfort with periodic on-site work, sometimes for days at a stretch, and equal comfort working remotely
- Bias toward delivery. Preference for shipping a working integration over perfecting a design that hasn't met a real workload
- Self-direction. You will encounter environments and problems that are not yet documented and will need to work through them independently
- Willingness to mentor junior engineers and help them build technical judgment through hands-on experience
More about this role
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. You'll be the person who takes UDS Data Capability from "deployable" to "running in production under classification." You will deploy, harden, integrate, and operate our data stack in the mission hero's environment, then carry what you learn back into the product so the next engagement is easier.
The scope of this work varies by engagement. Some programs require standing up a governed data platform to centralize sensor or operational data from known sources, where the problem is well-defined and the priority is building and shipping. Others involve consolidating data across hundreds of interconnected government systems of record with overlapping schemas, deeply interdependent data flows, and significant architectural complexity. You should be equally comfortable executing against a defined data problem and navigating ambiguity in a complex data landscape where the right approach isn't yet clear.
Forward-deployed means aligned with the mission hero, not always on a plane. Most of the work is...
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