Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) C-UAS
Defense Unicorns6 hours ago
Remote, United StatesSenior
Base Salary
$149k - $201k/yr
Responsibilities
- Deploy and harden UDS Data Capability, including UDS Store, UDS Transit, UDS Govern, and UDS Connect, in mission environments.
- Integrate data platforms with existing sensor arrays, C-UAS solutions, computer-vision-enabled interceptors, and other mission systems.
- Build ingestion, transformation, cataloging, model and dataset packaging, cross-domain transit, and DDIL data pipelines.
- Operate deployed systems through capacity management, performance optimization, backup and restore, observability, incident response, and upgrades.
- Generate STIG evidence, cATO documentation, FIPS validation notes, and policy mappings for IL4/IL5 environments.
- Document field issues, write postmortems, recommend operator improvements, and communicate mission needs to product and engineering teams.
- Create runbooks and architecture documentation, conduct training and knowledge transfer, and transition systems to mission operations teams.
- Mentor junior Data Engineer FDEs through pairing, integration design reviews, and technical problem-solving.
Requirements
- U.S. citizenship is required because the employer is a U.S. government contractor.
- An active TS/SCI clearance is required.
- Experience with tactical-edge and interoperable mission environments, including TAK Server, ATAK/WinTAK, tactical communications, and disconnected or air-gapped systems.
- Production experience with lakehouse technologies, object storage, PostgreSQL, and analytical query engines.
- Experience with Kafka or equivalent messaging, stream processing, CDC, and legacy-system integration.
- Hands-on experience building, scheduling, monitoring, troubleshooting, and recovering production data pipelines with Airflow, Dagster, Argo Workflows, or comparable tools.
- Knowledge of data governance, cataloging, access control, auditability, REST catalogs, ABAC/RBAC, OIDC/OAuth, and data lineage.
- Strong SQL skills and experience designing analytical and operational data models and schemas.
- Production Kubernetes experience covering deployments, operators, CRDs, storage classes, networking, and troubleshooting.
- Strong Linux, containerization, networking, TLS, and secrets-management fundamentals.
- Experience with Terraform, Pulumi, or similar infrastructure-as-code tools and GitOps deployment practices.
- Ability to troubleshoot complex software and data integrations in secure, disconnected, or mission-constrained environments.
- Strong communication, independent execution, adaptability, and stakeholder collaboration skills.
- Experience mentoring engineers through technical problem-solving, design reviews, and knowledge sharing.
- Preferred qualifications include Link 16/TADL-J, NIPR/SIPR, SATCOM, multi-band radios, C-UAS and autonomous-system integration, Strimzi, Flink, Debezium, pgvector, Iceberg REST, Polaris, Gravitino, Nessie, CNCF technologies, DoD IL4/IL5 accreditation, Zarf, cross-domain movement, and DDIL operations.
Benefits
- Remote position in the USA with approximately 10%–25% travel and occasional work in SCIFs or other restricted environments for days or weeks.
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage with 100% company-paid premiums.
- Health savings account, life insurance, disability insurance, 401(k) retirement plan, company stock options, and a home office budget.
- Flexible Time Off, federal holidays, one week for Thanksgiving, two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s, and paid parental leave.
- Reimbursement for approved training and subscriptions plus conference travel, lodging, and fees.
Tech Stack
Apache AirflowApache FlinkApache KafkaApache SparkAWSAzureClickHouseGoogle Cloud PlatformHelmKubernetesLinuxPostgreSQLTerraform
Categories
Forward Deployed
About Defense Unicorns
Defense Unicorns builds platform software and services that streamline secure, cloud-native delivery for defense and federal programs, with emphasis on DevSecOps, Kubernetes, and air‑gapped environments. It provides software and professional services under government contracts to deploy open-architecture platforms and CI/CD pipelines across classified and disconnected systems. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Colorado Springs, the privately held company serves U.S. defense and national security agencies.