Software Engineer

Defense Unicorns is a contractor for the U.S. government, seeking a Mid to Senior Software Engineer to transform legacy software into a cloud-native platform. The role involves designing and building scalable data pipelines, ensuring data quality, and collaborating with various stakeholders to deliver projects effectively.

Responsibilities:

• Partner with data architects, analysts, and a wide variety of stakeholders to translate ambiguous product requirements into technical solutions
• Design, build, and maintain complex ETL/ELT workflows
• Implement security protocols, including authentication and authorization
• Create optimized transformations to clean, enrich, and model data, utilizing cloud-native tools
• Ensure data quality, integrity, and compliance, maintaining metadata and lineage
• Help refactor and modernize existing on-prem systems into distributed, cloud-based services
• Contribute to the design of authentication, identity management, and RBAC/ABAC frameworks
• Participate in architectural discussions, code reviews, and ongoing technical improvements
• Drive best practices in microservice design, testing, observability, and CI/CD automation
• Collaborate closely with partner company engineers and stakeholders to devise the best solutions for our Mission Heroes
• Collaborate with the Defense Unicorns product team sharing improvements and growth opportunities for future projects
• Comfortable in an asynchronous, all remote environment
• Actively participate in communities of practice via Slack and Github Issues
• Integrate software products with existing defense systems, ensuring seamless interoperability and adherence to security protocols
• Own architecture decisions and ensure technical quality across the engineering team
• Develop comprehensive documentation, including design specifications, user manuals, and maintenance guides
• Stay abreast of emerging technologies and industry trends to inform product enhancements and innovation
• Provide technical mentorship and elevate engineering standards across the team
• Communicate effectively with all levels of engineers and stakeholders internal and external to the company
• Influence product direction through deep understanding of user needs and system constraints

Requirements:

• U.S. Citizenship
• Experience with software engineering
• Ability to write idiomatic, testable code in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Go, TypeScript, Python)
• Strong understanding of system design, API development, workflow orchestration, relational databases, and cloud platforms
• Deep knowledge of database design, schema design, indexing, and query optimization
• Experience leading a team through the decomposition of a complex monolithic application design into small, independent services
• Modern API design experience, beyond basic CRUD operations
• Experience with implementation of authorization and data governance, security telemetry pipelines, policy enforcement, and role-based access control
• Strong communication and collaboration skills
• Analytical, problem-solving mindset with a high attention to detail
• Experience working proactively, managing time efficiently, and thriving in a vibrant remote work environment
• 3+ years (mid) or 5+ years (senior) experience with software engineering
• Experience building a software tool with core focuses on software lifecycle and management
• Experience with Argo Workflows
• Familiar with Core Kubernetes Concepts including but not limited to Controllers, Operators, and CRDs
• Passion for clean architecture, automation, and iterative modernization
• Familiar with Department of Defense acquisition or sustainment software modernization projects