Associate Software Engineer

Defense Unicorns delivers secure, cloud-native software delivery solutions for mission-focused customers, including defense and civil agencies. The Associate Software Engineer will build, test, deploy, and maintain scoped product features while collaborating with engineering, product, design, and end users. The role also involves debugging, documentation, open-source contributions, system integration, and guided production support.

What you'll do:

• Build, ship, and maintain well-scoped features, fixes, and improvements that support mission-critical environments
• Contribute to implementation plans and technical discussions with support from senior teammates
• Collaborate with engineering, product, and design to translate clear requirements into working software
• Clarify product and technical requirements by asking thoughtful questions and documenting assumptions
• Debug issues, improve reliability, and learn production support practices as part of the team
• Help integrate with existing defense systems while learning interoperability and security expectations
• Contribute to open source projects and internal tooling through scoped issues, fixes, and documentation
• Develop and maintain clear technical documentation such as implementation notes, runbooks, and user guides
• Participate in production support and shared on-call practices with guidance, contributing to troubleshooting, incident follow-up, and reliability improvements
• Take on larger feature ownership with clear expectations and regular feedback
• Contribute to cross-functional work by communicating status, blockers, and tradeoffs clearly
• Build deeper user and system understanding that informs better implementation decisions

What they're looking for:

• **EMPLOYER IS A CONTRACTOR FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. THIS POSITION REQUIRES U.S. CITIZENSHIP.**
• **Travel Expectations/Requirements:** 0-5%
• * 1-3 years experience in software engineering
• * Working knowledge of Go or another modern programming language
• * Foundational understanding of software design, APIs, databases, and cloud environments (AWS, Azure, etc.)
• * Exposure to tools or projects focused on software lifecycle and delivery
• * Familiarity with Kubernetes concepts, or interest in learning them (Controllers, Operators, CRDs)
• * Familiarity with supply chain security concepts, or interest in learning them (SBOMs, signing, scanning, etc.)
• * Experience contributing to open source projects (CNCF, ASF, OpenSSF, etc.) through coursework, personal projects, internships, or professional work is a plus
• * Ability to break down problems, learn quickly, and deliver pragmatic solutions with team support
• * Clear communication and collaboration skills, with comfort asking questions and sharing progress

Benefits:

• Medical/Dental/Vision
• Premiums are 100% Company Paid
• Health Savings Account
• Life Insurance
• Disability Insurance
• 401k Retirement Plan
• Company Stock Options
• Home Office Budget
• Flexible Time Off (FTO) plus all Federal Holidays, one week for Thanksgiving, and two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s for all full-time Unicorns
• Paid Parental Leave