Senior Software Engineer - Zarf
Defense Unicorns
Role Description:
Defense Unicorns seeks an experienced Software Engineer to work on our open source products. 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 lead the design, implementation, and deployment of features and systems that have direct impact on mission outcomes.
As an open source steward, you’ll effectively bridge product development with open source contribution. You will help to directly support our dependencies and engage in contributions that elevate the ecosystems that we depend on.
Responsibilities:
- Work with engineers internal to the company, and within the open source community on feature and bug fix requests, through clear communication, collaboration, and responsible stewardship
- Engage with the open source community, industry partners, and standards bodies via common platforms (e.g., Slack, Github, etc.) to help drive our open source projects forward
- Amplify the voice of our projects within the ecosystem by delivering a mission-focused end-user experience and collaborating with users to produce case studies, blogs, or conference presentations
- Proactively identify and resolve ambiguity in product requirements
- Comfortable working proactively, managing time efficiently, and thriving in a vibrant remote work environment ✨🦄
- 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 (via Zarf Enhancement Proposals), 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
- Influence product direction through deep understanding of user needs and system constraints
Travel Expectations/Requirements: 5-15%
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:
- 5+ years experience with software engineering
- Experience building a software tool with core focuses on software lifecycle and management
- Proficient in Go (proficiency in other modern programming languages a plus)
- Strong understanding of system design, library and software APIs, and cloud architecture (e.g., AWS, Azure)
- Excited to assess intricate problems, propose solutions, and implement them effectively
- Experience contributing to Open Source Projects. Participating in Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), Apache Software Foundation (ASF), or Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) is a huge plus
- Familiar with Core Kubernetes Concepts including but not limited to Controllers, Operators, and CRDs
- Strong communication and collaboration skills, comfortable conveying technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences
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:
- Unlimited paid time off, with a mandatory 10 days off on top of 11 federal government holidays, week of Thanksgiving, last two weeks of December (including New Year’s Day)
- 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.