Role Description:
Defense Unicorns is seeking a Software Engineer to join our Edge Infrastructure team, working on UDS Image Factory.
This team builds developer tooling for declaratively composing complete, mission-ready system images for air-gapped environments. These images include everything required to run — operating system, Kubernetes, applications, and site-specific configuration — packaged into a single, versioned artifact.
The work sits at the intersection of software engineering, operating systems, and infrastructure. You’ll help build reliable, repeatable systems where everything must be defined at build time and work the first time in disconnected, real-world environments.
If you’re the type of developer who enjoys running and maintaining your own Linux systems—or wants to—this role will feel like home.
As a Software Engineer, you’ll contribute to the design and development of core platform capabilities that enable secure, predictable software delivery to the edge.
What You'll Work On:
- Building custom tooling that composes operating systems, Kubernetes, applications, and configuration into a single deployable artifact
- Developing and maintaining image build pipelines (container and VM/system images)
- Working with OS-level components, base images, and system configuration
- Building CLI tooling for defining and generating system variants
- Ensuring artifacts are deterministic, reproducible, and fully self-contained at build time
- Supporting software supply chain security (SBOMs, signing, provenance)
- Automating compliance requirements (e.g., STIGs)
- Enabling deployments in airgapped, offline-first, and constrained environments
Responsibilities:
- Collaborate with Product and Engineering to build and iterate on product features
- Translate requirements into clean, maintainable, and well-tested code
- Contribute to system design and implementation decisions
- Debug complex issues across application, container, and OS layers
- Improve reliability, performance, and security of systems that support product development, validation, and demos
- Write and maintain documentation for systems and workflows
- Participate in code reviews and engineering best practices
- Work effectively in a remote-first environment
Travel Expectations/Requirements: 0-5%
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.
Preferred Experience and Qualifications:
- 2–5 years of software engineering experience
- Proficiency in a modern programming language (Golang preferred)
- Experience with Linux systems, containers, or working close to the OS
- Familiarity with build systems, packaging, or image creation (or strong interest in learning)
- Experience with Kubernetes or container orchestration (or strong interest)
- Exposure to CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure tooling, or platform engineering concepts
- Understanding of APIs, distributed systems, and debugging across system boundaries
- Ability to break down complex problems and deliver practical solutions
- Strong communication and collaboration skills
Nice to Have:
- Experience with software supply chain security (SBOMs, signing, provenance, etc.)
- Familiarity with compliance and hardening standards (e.g., STIG, NIST, CIS benchmarks)
- Experience working in airgapped or restricted environments
- Contributions to open source or developer tooling projects
- Familiarity with immutable / minimal OS distributions (e.g., Flatcar, Talos, Kairos)
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.
Who We Are
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.
What We Do
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.
Who We Serve
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.
What We Work On
- Kubernetes
- Cloud Environments (AWS/GCP and Azure)
- Infrastructure-as-code (like Terraform/Pulumi)
- Continuous Delivery and automation tooling
- GitOps
- Containers
- CNCF projects and open source products and packages
- Helm/Kustomize-Value Stream Mapping
- Building and improving security delivery
- Building Kubernetes and cloud native applications
Benefits Our Unicorns Enjoy
Health:
- Medical/Dental/Vision
- Premiums are 100% Company Paid
- Health Reimbursement Account
- Life Insurance
- Disability Insurance
Financial:
- 401k Retirement Plan
- Company Stock Options
- Home Office Budget
Leave:
- We offer all full-time Unicorns Flexible Time Off (FTO) plus all Federal Holidays, one week for Thanksgiving, and two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s
- Paid Parental Leave
Learning:
- Reimbursement for approved trainings/subscriptions
- Conferences (travel, lodging, and fees)
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.