--- title: 'Software Engineering Manager at Kestrel Intelligence' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineering-manager-kestrel-intelligence-united-states-axhxe6gq766h' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-20' --- # Software Engineering Manager at Kestrel Intelligence - **Company:** Kestrel Intelligence - **Location:** United States - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** hybrid - **Posted:** 2026-10-15 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-20 - **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/kestrel-intelligence/ac23ca79-e21d-4fa1-ae7d-f04ee48a45b8 ## Job description The Mission At Kestrel, we are building the future of scalable autonomy across domains. Our systems enable commercial and national security customers to sense and act in support of complex missions without significant autonomous system expertise. This technology bridges domains (e.g., space, air, land, sea) and fields (e.g., AI, orbital dynamics, geospatial), so it requires a team with both breadth and depth in these related topics. ## The Role As an Engineering Manager at Kestrel, you will lead a team of software engineers who build our data processing pipelines, APIs, agentic AI architecture, infrastructure, and user interfaces. You will hire and develop engineers, set delivery priorities, and keep the team focused on shipping reliable software that meets customer mission needs. You will stay close enough to the technology to guide architecture decisions and unblock the team. This role requires sound judgment, strong communication, and a deep respect for the mission. Core Responsibilities: - Lead, mentor, and grow a team of software engineers through regular one-on-ones, clear expectations, and career development plans. - Recruit and hire engineers who bring both technical depth and alignment with Kestrel’s mission and culture. - Plan and manage the team’s work, including sprint planning, roadmap execution, and delivery against customer and program milestones. - Partner with product, business development, and company leadership to translate customer mission needs into clear engineering priorities. - Guide architecture and design decisions across Python-based services, data pipelines, cloud infrastructure, and agentic AI components. - Establish and enforce engineering best practices, such as code review standards, testing, CI/CD, documentation, and incident response. - Ensure the team builds compliance-ready systems that support future AWS GovCloud and DoD IL deployments. - Coordinate engineering support for pilots, demos, customer site visits, and proposal technical volumes. - Identify and mitigate technical, schedule, and staffing risks early, and communicate tradeoffs clearly to leadership. - Track team health and delivery metrics, and continuously improve how the team works. Required Qualifications: - 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including at least 2 years of direct people management. - A track record of leading teams that ship production software on schedule. - Hands-on experience with Python, API development, distributed or service-oriented systems, and cloud environments (preferably AWS). - Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical tradeoffs to nontechnical stakeholders. Bonus: - Experience leading engineering teams that support DoD or IC programs. - Familiarity with AWS GovCloud, DoD IL requirements, or the Risk Management Framework (RMF). - Experience with geospatial data, ISR systems, or agentic AI architectures. - Experience scaling an engineering team at a startup or venture-backed company. - Location near Colorado Springs, CO, or Washington, DC (with work at customer sites in Crystal City, VA, and Herndon, VA). - Active Top Secret // Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS//SCI) clearance with a counterintelligence-scope polygraph (CSP) or full-scope polygraph (FSP). Must be a US Citizen. ## About Kestrel Intelligence ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Kestrel Intelligence builds an agentic AI platform that autonomously orchestrates and tasks intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) sensors across space, air, land, and sea for military, intelligence, and commercial operators. - **Entity Type**: Private (early-stage startup, venture-backed) - **Headquarters**: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA (with offices in Rosslyn, Virginia and Boise, Idaho) - **Founded**: 2025 - **Founders**: Thomas Higginbotham (CEO) and Eric T. Straub (Co-Founder) ## Core Business - Primary industry: Defense / National Security / Space ISR - Target customers: U.S. Department of Defense (especially Space Force), intelligence community, commercial enterprises in agriculture, infrastructure monitoring, disaster response, and critical infrastructure operators (B2G, B2B) - Mission or purpose statement: "Transforming sensing tasking and orchestration with an AI-driven, marketplace approach" — making geospatial intelligence collection "as seamless as calling a ride" while removing the busywork that prevents analysts from focusing on high-level intelligence ## Products & Services - **[Kestrel Intelligence Platform]**: A multi-agent AI system that automates the allocation, prioritization, and coordination of ISR collection across hundreds of heterogeneous sensors (satellites, aerial, ground, maritime). The platform uses agentic AI to plan, negotiate, and re-task assets in real time, with human-on-the-loop oversight. It is deployed as a cloud/secure environment software service for government and enterprise customers. ## Market Standing - **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private company) - **Key Metric**: Total employee count of 7 (as of early 2026), growing 450% year-over-year; selected for the U.S. Space Force Catalyst Accelerator 16th cohort - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Navigate VC (portfolio company); U.S. Space Force Space Delta 7 (accelerator partner & operational end user) - **Growth Signals**: Rapid headcount growth (from ~1 to 7 employees in first year); acceptance into a competitive defense accelerator focused on AI/ML for ISR; hiring for hybrid engineering and data science roles in Colorado Springs and Crystal City, VA ## Competitive Advantages - **Agentic AI approach** that goes beyond traditional automation — the system reasons about objectives, negotiates competing priorities, and dynamically reallocates resources across domains. - **Founding team** combines operational intelligence experience (CIA, U.S. Air Force) with deep AI expertise (Stanford, Google X, C3 AI), giving them both domain credibility and technical capability. - **Multi-sensor, multi-domain orchestration** that connects 3,500+ global autonomous sensors — a rare integration layer in a fragmented market. - **Human-on-the-loop design** ensures trust and adoption by military/intelligence operators while achieving machine-speed execution. ## Strategic Focus - Current priority: Refining the platform for space-based ISR missions through the Catalyst Accelerator (Jan–Apr 2026), working directly with Space Delta 7 operators and technical advisors. - Near-term direction: Expanding commercial use cases (agriculture, industrial monitoring) and scaling the engineering team to build out the platform’s marketplace and agent capabilities. ## Why Work Here - **Mission-driven work** at the intersection of AI, space, and national security — every engineer and data scientist contributes directly to solving high-impact intelligence problems. - **Small, growing team** (~7 people) means outsized ownership and influence; employees wear multiple hats and work closely with founders and former operators. - **Hybrid work policy** with office hubs in Colorado Springs, CO and Crystal City, VA (across from the Pentagon) — offering flexibility while maintaining in-person collaboration for sensitive work. - **Cutting-edge tech stack** dealing with agentic AI, multi-sensor fusion, and real-time orchestration — an opportunity to build novel systems not available in the commercial sector. - **Culture highlights**: Tight-knit team with backgrounds in intelligence, defense, and big tech; emphasis on removing busywork rather than removing humans; transparent hiring process (uses AI tools to screen, but final decisions are human-led). ## Sources 1. [kestrelintelligence.com](https://kestrelintelligence.com/) 2. [kestrelintelligence.com/blog/inside-delta-7-catalyst-accelerator](https://kestrelintelligence.com/blog/inside-delta-7-catalyst-accelerator) 3. [linkedin.com/company/kestrel-intelligence](https://linkedin.com/company/kestrel-intelligence) 4. [navigatevc.com/portfolio-companies/kestrel-intelligence](https://www.navigatevc.com/portfolio-companies/kestrel-intelligence) 5. 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