Associate Engineer, Defense Unicorns
Data Platform
$102-138k
More information about location
Software for national security systems
Be an early applicant
Software for national security systems
101-200 employees
Be an early applicant
$102-138k
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
- 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
- An orientation toward testing and validation — you find satisfaction in knowing that something works, not just that it runs; you break things intentionally and document what you find
- U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain a security clearance
Desirable
- Comfort with at least one programming language — Python, Go, TypeScript, or similar; willingness to learn what the stack requires
- Genuine curiosity about how distributed systems work and fail — you want to understand the system, not just run scripts against it
- Comfort with command-line tooling and Linux environments
- Ability to write clearly: bug reports, documentation, and runbooks that another engineer can follow
- Comfortable working asynchronously in a remote environment ✨🦄
- 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
- Interest in defense, national security software, or government technology
- Contributions to open source projects, even small ones
What the job involves
- 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
- Contribute to internal tooling, dashboards, and documentation
- Write clear bug reports and reproduction steps that the team can act on immediately
- Participate actively in code review, seeking feedback, and growing your technical judgment
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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