---
title: 'Senior Software Engineer - Autonomous and Unmanned Systems (FedD178) at Defense Unicorns'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-autonomous-and-unmanned-systems-fedd178-defense-r35vw423aded'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-12'
---

# Senior Software Engineer - Autonomous and Unmanned Systems (FedD178) at Defense Unicorns

- **Company:** Defense Unicorns
- **Location:** United States
- **Compensation:** $149k–$201k
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-08-06
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/defenseunicorns/jobs/5205829007

## Job description

EMPLOYER IS A CONTRACTOR FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. THIS POSITION REQUIRES U.S. CITIZENSHIP.

Role Description:

Defense Unicorns is seeking a Senior Full-Stack Engineer to join our Autonomous and Unmanned Systems Delivery Team, focused on integrating and delivering Fleet Management and Edge Management capabilities aboard unmanned systems operating in distributed and disconnected environments.

This role is centered on developing complex, data-driven interfaces that allow users to understand, manage, and operate distributed systems across edge and remote environments. These are not simple CRUD interfaces, they are operational control surfaces for real-world systems.

You will hone a frontend experience tailored to our nation’s most experienced warfighters, while working across the stack to ensure tight alignment between UI behavior, APIs, and underlying system capabilities.

You’ll collaborate closely with backend engineers, platform engineers, and designers to build responsive, reliable, and intuitive experiences on top of complex APIs and distributed system state. You’ll also partner with cross-functional teams to help deliver software that supports autonomous platforms operating in bandwidth-constrained and RF-enabled environments.

While frontend-focused, this role requires strong full-stack awareness- understanding how data flows through systems, how APIs are designed, and how frontend decisions impact system behavior, especially in asynchronous and distributed environments.

What You’ll Work On:

- Deliver interfaces for managing individual assets and large fleets of autonomous and unmanned systems.
- Design and implement data-rich UIs that reflect real-time and distributed system state.
- Work with stakeholders to develop workflows for deploying, updating, and monitoring systems across edge, remote, and disconnected environments.
- Handle complex state management and asynchronous data flows.
- Integrate frontend applications with backend APIs, platform services, and communications technologies.
- Improve usability and clarity for technically complex operational workflows.
- Partner with UX to translate complex system behavior into intuitive user experiences.

Responsibilities:

You will serve as a crucial link between applications, either custom development, COTS, or OSS, and the DoW platform environment, advocating best practices and facilitating communication between application teams and platform teams.

In this position, you will be expected to:

- Evaluate and weigh different methods for solving complex technical problems, identifying innovative solutions that support autonomous and unmanned systems operating in distributed and disconnected environments.
- Demonstrate technical expertise across multiple knowledge domains while contributing deep experience in one or more technologies such as full-stack application development, cloud-native technologies, Kubernetes, CI/CD, GitOps, AWS, Go, or similar modern software development practices.
- Develop and integrate software with backend APIs, platform services, and communications technologies to support reliable operations across edge and remote environments.
- Exhibit strong programming skills and deep familiarity with Linux/Unix operating systems.
- Implement infrastructure as code and contribute to the build and maintenance of Kubernetes clusters across multiple distributions (e.g., EKS, RKE2).
- Apply secure software development practices and cloud-native deployment methodologies, including vulnerability remediation and infrastructure automation.
- Collaborate closely with backend, platform, product, and UX teams to deliver intuitive, mission-focused software solutions for complex operational environments.
- Build relationships with internal and external stakeholders, translating operational requirements into technical solutions while contributing to the strategic direction of the Autonomous and Unmanned Systems portfolio.

Travel Expectations: 4-12 times per year.

Required Experience and Qualifications:

- 5+ years of experience in frontend or full-stack software development.
- Strong proficiency with modern frontend frameworks (Svelte or React preferred; Angular or similar frameworks acceptable).
- Strong familiarity with modern frontend tooling and build system best practices.
- Experience with testing strategies across frontend applications.
- Experience building data-intensive or state-heavy applications.
- Strong understanding of API design and integration (REST, GraphQL, etc.).
- Experience working closely with backend systems and distributed architectures.
- Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to navigate complex systems.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to effectively communicate with both technical teams and operational end users.
- U.S. Citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain a TS/SCI security clearance.

Preferred Experience and Qualifications:

- Experience with RF communications, tactical radios, mesh networks, or other distributed communications technologies.
- Experience integrating software aboard autonomous or unmanned systems.
- Experience designing for constrained, disconnected, or unreliable network environments.
- Experience working with Special Operations or other Department of Defense mission customers.
- Experience building interfaces for infrastructure, DevOps, or platform systems.
- Familiarity with Kubernetes, containers, or distributed systems concepts.
- Experience with CI/CD and deployment pipelines.
- Contributions to open-source or developer tooling projects.

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.

Remote - USA $148,750—$201,250 USD

## 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 Savings 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.

[CCPA DISCLOSURE](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DzT00w2uadYw9TfdorHuEsvPccZvn_g4/view?usp=drive_link)

## About Defense Unicorns

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Defense Unicorns delivers secure, scalable, and vendor-lock-free software deployment solutions for mission-critical, air-gapped, and classified environments, primarily for the U.S. Department of Defense and intelligence community.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B)
- **Headquarters**: Colorado, United States
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Rob Slaughter (CEO), Jeff McCoy (CTO), Andrew Greene (Co-founder)

## Core Business
- Primary industry/industries: Defense technology, software development, national security, cloud-native infrastructure
- Target customers: U.S. Department of Defense agencies, system integrators, and mission teams operating in air-gapped, classified, or highly secure environments
- Mission or purpose statement: "Advance freedom globally by transforming how the U.S. defense and intelligence community buys, builds, delivers, and sustains mission capabilities."

## Products & Services
- **[UDS (Unicorn Delivery Service)]**: An open-source, platform-agnostic software delivery platform that enables the packaging, deployment, and management of modern cloud-native applications into air-gapped, edge, and classified environments. It automates security compliance, vulnerability scanning, and continuous ATO (cATO) workflows.
- **[Zarf]**: An open-source, air-gap-native software delivery tool that was the company’s first product, designed to simplify deploying containerized applications in disconnected environments.
- **Professional Services & Mission Support**: Custom engineering, platform integration, and mission-specific deployment support for DoD agencies and system integrators.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: $1 Billion+ (achieved unicorn status in January 2026)
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding of $171.5M across two rounds
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Bain Capital (led Series B of $136M in January 2026), Ansa Capital and Sapphire Ventures (co-led $35M Series A in February 2024)
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount of 150+ employees (35.9% YoY growth), 35,000+ LinkedIn followers (42.4% yearly growth), 34 active job postings, and a growing list of DoD and intelligence community clients.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Deep domain expertise**: Founded by veterans of Kessel Run and Platform One, the team has firsthand experience building and deploying software within the DoD, giving them unique credibility and insight.
- **Open-source, vendor-lock-free philosophy**: Their products (UDS, Zarf) are open-source, ensuring no proprietary vendor lock-in, which is a critical requirement for national security systems.
- **Air-gap specialization**: Their core technology is purpose-built for the most challenging deployment environments (disconnected, classified, edge), a niche that few commercial software companies can serve.
- **Continuous ATO integration**: Security and compliance are built directly into the software delivery pipeline, dramatically reducing the time to get new capabilities into the hands of warfighters.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scaling the platform**: With the $136M Series B, the company is aggressively investing in product development, engineering, and go-to-market teams to expand UDS capabilities and customer reach.
- **Expanding mission delivery**: Hiring across multiple "Mission Manager" and "Account Executive" roles focused on specific military branches (Air Force, Army, Navy, Space, USSOCOM), indicating deep vertical integration into each service branch.
- **Open-source ecosystem growth**: Continuing to build and nurture the open-source community around UDS and Zarf to drive adoption and create partnership opportunities across the defense software ecosystem.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-driven culture**: The company operates with a single belief: "a value not lived is not a value at all." Core values include "We Take Extreme Ownership," "We Innovate to Impact," and "We Are MISSION Driven."
- **Remote-first environment**: Most roles are fully remote from anywhere in the United States, with support for home office setup. Onsite requirements are clearly noted when needed for mission support.
- **Comprehensive benefits**: 100% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees (shared cost for dependents), company equity options, 401k, life and disability insurance, and generous paid parental leave.
- **Generous time off**: Flexible Time Off (FTO) plus all Federal Holidays, one week for Thanksgiving, and two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s.
- **Career growth**: Financial support for training, conferences, and professional subscriptions.
- **SkillBridge program**: Authorized DoD SkillBridge provider, offering internships and apprenticeships for service members transitioning to civilian careers.
- **Engineering-driven**: "Engineer Driven" is a core identity, with a strong emphasis on solving hard technical problems for national security.

## Sources
1. [defenseunicorns.com - About Us](https://defenseunicorns.com/company/)
2. [defenseunicorns.com - The Airgap Software Company](https://defenseunicorns.com/)
3. [defenseunicorns.com - Careers](https://defenseunicorns.com/careers/)
4. [Greenhouse - Jobs at Defense Unicorns](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/defenseunicorns)
5. [LinkedIn - Defense Unicorns](https://www.linkedin.com/company/defense-unicorns)

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