Customer Support Engineer, Defense Unicorns
ComD092
$102-138k
+ Company Stock Options
More information about location
Software for national security systems
Open for applications
Software for national security systems
101-200 employees
Open for applications
$102-138k
+ Company Stock Options
More information about location
101-200 employees
Company mission
To create software to solve the unique challenges experienced by the government.
Role
Who you are
- 2–5 years of experience in technical support, DevOps, SRE, or a related engineering role
- Solid Linux proficiency — log analysis, process debugging, and system performance troubleshooting
- Hands-on experience with Kubernetes — deploying workloads, troubleshooting pods, reading cluster state across managed distributions (EKS, AKS) and on-prem (RKE2, K3s, OpenShift)
- Strong knowledge of hybrid cloud architectures, including networking, RBAC, and storage for both cloud and on-prem clusters
- Practical knowledge of at least one major cloud provider (AWS or Azure preferred)
- Experience with Helm, GitOps workflows, and Infrastructure-as-Code tooling (Terraform or OpenTofu)
- Familiarity with DevSecOps/DevOps and CI/CD pipelines running on GitLab or GitHub
- Strong written and verbal communication — you can write a concise incident summary for an executive and a detailed reproduction guide for an engineer
- Experience working directly with external customers in a technical capacity
- Experience with day to day systems like: GitHub, Unthread (support ticketing), Linear (issue tracking), Planhat (customer success), and Notion
- Familiarity with open-source ecosystems
- DoD IAT Level II certification (such as Security+) (a plus)
- Active DoD Secret clearance or higher not required but preferred
- Kubernetes certification (CKA, CKAD, or CKS) (a plus)
- Scripting ability in Bash, Python, or Go (a plus)
- Familiarity with regulated, high-compliance, or air-gapped deployment environments (a plus)
- Travel Expectations/Requirements: 10%-20%
- 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
What the job involves
- As a Support Engineer, you're not reading from a script or routing tickets into a void. You're the person who actually understands what's broken, why it's broken, and how to fix it
- You'll work directly with technical customers to troubleshoot complex issues across Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure, and CI/CD pipelines — and when something needs to go to engineering, you'll hand it off with enough context that they can move fast
- As a primary technical contact for customer issues, you will own problems from the first report through resolution
- You'll work hands-on with customer environments, partner closely with engineering and our Customer Success Team when escalations warrant it, and continuously improve the systems and documentation that make the whole support function better.
- Serve as a primary technical point of contact for customer-reported issues via ticketing system, Slack, and email
- Troubleshoot complex issues across Linux environments, Kubernetes clusters (EKS, AKS, RKE2, K3s, OpenShift), cloud infrastructure (AWS/Azure/GCP), and CI/CD pipelines
- Diagnose problems spanning hybrid cloud architectures — networking, RBAC, storage, and cluster lifecycle — across both cloud and on-prem environments
- Own escalated issues end-to-end — from triage and reproduction through resolution and post-mortem documentation, meeting defined SLA commitments
- Reproduce customer issues in test environments and characterize root causes with enough precision to accelerate engineering investigations
- Provide on-call support when the mission demands it
- Communicate clearly with customers on issue status, timelines, and workarounds
- Write and maintain runbooks, escalation playbooks, and knowledge base articles that reduce repeat escalations
- Identify patterns in customer issues and surface product and documentation gaps to engineering and product teams
- Participate in on-call rotations and contribute to post-incident reviews
- Review and provide feedback on Tier 1 escalations before they reach engineering
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Customer Success, Platform Engineering, and Product teams
- Contribute to process improvements that increase support team efficiency and customer satisfaction
- Success Metrics:
- Time-to-resolution across assigned customer issues
- Escalation quality — engineering can act on what you hand them
- Customer satisfaction scores
- Knowledge base coverage and reduction in repeat escalations
- On-call performance and incident contribution
- The listed responsibilities are not exhaustive and additional responsibilities may be assigned or discovered based on the evolving needs of the organization
- The successful candidate is a dynamic individual who is able to adapt and take on new responsibilities as they arise. You will be expected not just to fill gaps as they arise, but proactively identify and take ownership of gaps to drive toward new processes and solutions
- 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
Our take
Military defence technology is having to adapt at a quickening pace. However, innovations in the tech sector, outdated technology, varied compute environments, and complex security and compliance issues create lags in new defence technology. Defense Unicorns is an open-source tech developer aiming to minimise this lag.
Founded by former Department of Defense software engineers, Defense Unicorns uses AI and innovative software to create military technology for various uses and combat landscapes. The company is particularly focused on tech that can be used in “air-gapped” areas - those that are disconnected from the internet.
In terms of the company's future position in the market, Defense Unicorns received $136 million in Series B funding in 2026. This will be used to expand its services for the US and allied military systems, and signifies a rapidly changing combat landscape set against an unpredictable global backdrop, one in which Defense Unicorns has the chance to be an important player.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Jan 2026
$136m
SERIES B
Feb 2024
$35m
SERIES A
Total funding: $171.5m
Company benefits
- Medical/Dental/Vision (premiums are 100% company paid)
- Health reimbursement account
- Life insurance & disability insurance
- 401k with employer contribution (regardless of employee contribution)
- Company stock options
- Home office setup budget
- Unlimited paid time off, with a mandatory 10 days off on top of 11 federal government holidays
- Paid parental leave
- Reimbursement for approved trainings/subscriptions
- Conferences (travel, lodging, and fees)
Company HQ
Southeast Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, CO
Leadership
Robert Slaughter
(Co-Founder & CEO)Works as a Trainer at Project Blue. Previously the Director of DoD Platform One, a Counselor at SpaceCAMP, and worked in DevOps for the US Airforce.
Andrew Greene
(Co-Founder & Engineer)Previously worked for DoD Platform One. Was also a Software Engineer at Omitron and at SGT.
Jeff McCoy
(Co-Founder & CTO)Previously Co-Founder and CTO at Platform One, Was also CTO at SpaceCAMP, Senior Software Engineer at Defense Innovation Unit, and Co-Founder at DDS Rogue Squadron.
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