Role Description: 

Defense Unicorns is seeking Software Engineers (Mid and Senior) to join our UDS Product Engineering team. You’ll collaborate closely with product managers, designers, and end users to ensure we’re building the right solutions, and building them well.

As a Software Engineer, you’ll operate at the intersection of product development and technical execution. You’ll contribute to and, at times, lead the design, implementation, and deployment of features and systems that have direct impact on mission outcomes. Our engineers work across a portfolio that includes

• UDS Registry — reliably manage and deploy UDS packages to any mission environment  
• Zarf — an open source tool enabling continuous software delivery on disconnected systems  
• UDS Foundry — Core tooling and systems that build secure, repeatable, and scalable package delivery tooling for the entire UDS Ecosystem
• Fleet — manage distributed systems across Denied, Disrupted, Intermittent, and Limited (DDIL) and fully airgapped environments  
• UDS Image Factory — developer tooling for composing complete, mission-ready system images (OS, Kubernetes, applications, configuration) into a single deployable artifact  
• UDS Foundation — core platform and tooling that power UDS, serving Platform Engineers building and operating UDS across environments

The UDS Product Engineering team values action, ownership, and focus, taking initiative to see work through from idea to impact.

How You’ll Contribute:

Mid-level Software Engineer:

• Deliver high-quality, production-ready code with strong testing and reliability practices
• Own well-scoped features and systems end-to-end
• Contribute to design discussions and implementation decisions
• Navigate ambiguity with increasing independence
• Build deep understanding of the systems and domains you work in

Senior Software Engineer:

• Lead design and implementation of complex systems across teams
• Own and be accountable for systems or major components end-to-end
• Drive technical direction and influence product decisions
• Operate effectively in ambiguity and define clear paths forward
• Mentor other engineers and elevate engineering standards

Responsibilities: 

• Build, ship, and maintain features and systems that support mission-critical environments
• Contribute to system design, architecture, and implementation decisions
• Collaborate with engineering, product, and design to translate requirements into scalable technical solutions
• Identify and reduce ambiguity in product and technical requirements
• Debug, optimize, and support production systems (including on-call rotation)
• Integrate with existing defense systems while ensuring interoperability and security compliance
• Contribute to and support the open source ecosystems we depend on
• Develop and maintain technical documentation (designs, runbooks, user guides)
• Participates in a shared 24x7 on-call rotation, owning incident response, troubleshooting, and coordination to ensure reliable production systems

Additionally, Senior Software Engineers will:

• Own architectural decisions and ensure technical quality across systems
• Lead cross-team initiatives and complex technical efforts
• Influence product direction through deep user and system understanding
• Provide mentorship and raise the bar for engineering practices

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:

• 3+ years (Mid) or 5+ years (Senior) experience in software engineering
• Proficiency in Go or other modern programming languages
• Strong understanding of system design, APIs, databases, and cloud environments (AWS, Azure, etc.)
• Experience building tools focused on software lifecycle and delivery
• Familiarity with Kubernetes concepts (Controllers, Operators, CRDs)
• Experience with supply chain security (SBOMs, signing, scanning, etc.)
• Experience contributing to open source projects (CNCF, ASF, OpenSSF, etc.) is a strong plus
• Ability to solve complex problems and deliver pragmatic, scalable solutions
• Strong communication and collaboration skills across technical and non-technical audiences