Senior Software Engineer - Open Source (RD217)
Defense Unicorns3 hours ago
Remote, United StatesSenior
Base Salary
$149k - $201k/yr
Responsibilities
- Collaborate with internal engineers and open source contributors on features, bug fixes, reviews, releases, and project stewardship.
- Engage with open source communities, industry partners, standards bodies, and end users through platforms such as Slack and GitHub.
- Build and integrate secure, interoperable cloud-native software for defense environments and contribute improvements to upstream projects.
- Own architecture decisions and technical quality across open source codebases, APIs, and contributor workflows.
- Develop design proposals, contribution guides, user documentation, and maintenance guides.
- Identify and resolve ambiguity across product requirements, community needs, and upstream project constraints.
- Influence product direction through understanding of user needs and system constraints.
- Provide technical mentorship and elevate engineering standards across the team.
- Communicate project value through user collaboration, case studies, blogs, and conference presentations.
Requirements
- At least 5 years of software engineering experience.
- Experience building or maintaining open source software, particularly in cloud-native, software lifecycle, or software supply chain domains.
- Proficiency in Go and willingness to learn TypeScript, with potential contributions in languages such as Rust.
- Strong understanding of system design, software APIs, Kubernetes, and cloud architecture including AWS and Azure.
- Familiarity with Kubernetes concepts such as controllers, operators, and CRDs.
- Experience contributing to open source projects and participating in open source communities; CNCF, ASF, or OpenSSF involvement is a plus.
- Ability to assess complex problems, propose solutions, and implement them effectively.
- Strong communication and collaboration skills with technical and non-technical audiences.
Benefits
- Remote work from the USA with expected travel of 5–15%.
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance with premiums 100% company paid, plus a health savings account.
- Life insurance and disability insurance.
- 401(k) retirement plan, company stock options, and a home office budget.
- Flexible Time Off, federal holidays, one week for Thanksgiving, and two weeks for Christmas and New Year's.
- Paid parental leave.
- Reimbursement for approved training and subscriptions.
- Conference support including travel, lodging, and fees.
Categories
About Defense Unicorns
Defense Unicorns specializes in platform technologies that enable rapid and reliable delivery of capabilities across a wide range of mission and technology areas. We support open architecture platforms for secure mission systems that provide optionality for the end user, promote scalability, and allow for continuous identification and integration of new products and services while avoiding vendor lock. Our open approach creates partnership opportunities across the software ecosystem. Our people are innovators, software engineers, and veterans with decades of experience delivering technology programs across DoW and the broader federal market. Let's drive change together. Get in touch at hello@defenseunicorns.com