Software Engineer

About this role

<h1><strong>EMPLOYER IS A CONTRACTOR FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. THIS POSITION REQUIRES U.S. CITIZENSHIP.</strong></h1> <h1><strong><br>Role Description: </strong></h1> <p>Defense Unicorns is seeking a Mid to Senior Software Engineer to help drive our transformation from legacy, on-premises software to a modern, cloud-native platform. In this role you will play a key part in designing and building our next-generation scalable data pipelines to ingest, transform, and load data from diverse sources.  You'll be joining Defense Unicorns’ US Navy team and be responsible for creating and owning end-to-end project delivery, and advocating best practices in database usage and system architecture.  You will work closely with other software engineers, platform engineers, end users, and external stakeholders.</p> <p> </p> <h1><strong>Responsibilities: </strong></h1> <ul> <li>Partner with data architects, analysts, and a wide variety of stakeholders to translate ambiguous product requirements into technical solutions</li> <li>Design, build, and maintain complex ETL/ELT workflows </li> <li>Implement security protocols, including authentication and authorization, </li> <li>Create optimized transformations to clean, enrich, and model data, utilizing cloud-native tools</li> <li>Ensure data quality, integrity, and compliance, maintaining metadata and lineage</li> <li>Help refactor and modernize existing on-prem systems into distributed, cloud-based services</li> <li>Contribute to the design of authentication, identity management, and RBAC/ABAC frameworks</li> <li>Participate in architectural discussions, code reviews, and ongoing technical improvements</li> <li>Drive best practices in microservice design, testing, observability, and CI/CD automation</li> <li>Collaborate closely with partner company engineers and stakeholders to devise the best solutions for our Mission Heroes</li> <li>Collaborate with the Defense Unicorns product team sharing improvements and growth opportunities for future projects</li> <li>Comfortable in an asynchronous, all remote environment</li> <li>Actively participate in communities of practice via Slack and Github Issues</li> <li>Integrate software products with existing defense systems, ensuring seamless interoperability and adherence to security protocols</li> <li>Own architecture decisions and ensure technical quality across the engineering team.</li> <li>Develop comprehensive documentation, including design specifications, user manuals, and maintenance guides</li> <li>Stay abreast of emerging technologies and industry trends to inform product enhancements and innovation</li> <li>Provide technical mentorship and elevate engineering standards across the team</li> <li>Communicate effectively with all levels of engineers and stakeholders internal and external to the company</li> <li>Influence product direction through deep understanding of user needs and system constraints</li> </ul> <p> </p> <p><strong>Travel Expectations/Requirements:</strong> 10-15%</p> <p><strong>The listed responsibilities are not exhaustive and additional responsibilities may be assigned based on the evolving needs of the organization. We are seeking a dynamic individual who is able to adapt and take on new responsibilities as they arise. </strong></p> <h1><strong>Preferred Experience and Qualifications:</strong></h1> <ul> <li>3+ years (mid) or 5+ years (senior) experience with software engineering</li> <li>Experience building a software tool with core focuses on software lifecycle and management </li> <li>Expert level proficiency in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Go, TypeScript, Python) with the ability to write idiomatic, testable code</li> <li>Strong understanding of system design, API development, workflow orchestration (Argo Workflows preferred), relational databases, and cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure)</li> <li>Deep knowledge of database design, schema design, indexing, and query optimization</li> <li>Past experience leading a team through the decomposition of a complex monolithic application design into small, independent services that communicate with lightweight APIs</li> <li>Modern API design experience, beyond basic CRUD operations; use of RESTful services, and high confidence utilizing tools such as FastAPI in Python, ASP.NET in C#, or equivalent</li> <li>Experience with implementation of authorization and data governance, security telemetry pipelines, policy enforcement, and role-based access control to ensure compliance and data privacy across enterprise systems</li> <li>Excited to assess intricate problems, propose solutions, and implement them effectively</li> <li>Familiar with Core Kubernetes Concepts including but not limited to Controllers, Operators, and CRDs</li> <li>Passion for clean architecture, automation, and iterative modernization</li> <li>Familiar with Department of Defense acquisition or sustainment software modernization projects</li> <li>Strong communication and collaboration skills, comfortable conveying technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences as well as leading technical working sessions with partners and mission heroes</li> <li>Analytical, problem-solving mindset with a high attention to detail</li> <li>Experience working…