engineering
Posted Jun 15Associate Engineer - Data Platform
United StatesRemote
Responsibilities
- Write and maintain test suites — integration, end-to-end, and regression — that give the team confidence to ship
- Write automated tests and test documentation that any engineer can reproduce and act on
- Package and deploy open source software components in Kubernetes environments
- Build and maintain seed data tooling and scripts that make the platform demonstrable from scratch
- Write clear bug reports and reproduction steps that the team can act on immediately
- Test suites and validation tooling that give the team confidence to ship a new capability
Requirements
- Degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical field — or equivalent demonstrated hands-on technical ability
- Active and effective user of AI-assisted development tools (GitHub Copilot, Claude, Cursor, or similar) — you know how to prompt well, validate output, and catch when the model is wrong
- U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain a security clearance Preferred Experience and
- Comfort with at least one programming language — Python, Go, TypeScript, or similar; willingness to learn what the stack requires
- Comfort with command-line tooling and Linux environments
- Ability to write clearly: bug reports, documentation, and runbooks that another engineer can follow
- Any exposure to Kubernetes — even running a local cluster (k3s, k0s, minikube) counts
- Familiarity with containerization (Docker, container images) •
- Experience with any database — relational (Postgres, MySQL), document (MongoDB), key-value (Redis), or similar
- Coursework or personal projects involving data, AI, or machine learning
- experience delivering technology programs across the federal market. What We Do
- 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)
- Building Kubernetes and cloud native applications
Benefits
- 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 $102,000 — $138,000 USD Who We Are
- 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
- Medical/Dental/Vision
- Premiums are 100% Company Paid
- Health Savings Account Life Insurance
- Disability Insurance Financial:
- 401k Retirement Plan
- 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:
Additional details
- Defense Unicorns is seeking an Associate Engineer who is energized by learning, ready to get their hands dirty, and genuinely motivated by knowing that software actually works — not just that it deploys.
- This is a role for someone early in their career who wants to grow quickly in a rigorous technical environment and contribute to systems that matter.
- You will own real work from day one: packaging and deploying open source software, writing test suites that give the team confidence to ship, and building the tooling and documentation that make complex distributed systems understandable and demonstrable.
- You will work directly with other engineers and product leaders who will invest in your growth.
- If you find satisfaction in breaking things on purpose, documenting what you find, and making sure the next person can reproduce it — this role is a strong fit. Responsibilities
- Contribute to internal tooling, dashboards, and documentation
- Participate actively in code review, seeking feedback, and growing your technical judgment
- Travel: 10-20%, primarily for customer engagements and company gatherings. What You'll Work On
- Deployment automation and tooling that let any engineer stand up the full platform from scratch
- Real bug reports and edge case documentation that directly accelerate how quickly other engineers can identify and resolve issues