Senior AI Software Engineer (RD271)
Summary
Senior engineer on Defense Unicorns' Ark team building an AI-native developer product that automates creating, packaging, validating, and delivering secure applications into regulated, air-gapped mission environments. Work spans AI agent orchestration, isolated dev environments, Kubernetes/UDS packaging, and automated testing.
EMPLOYER IS A CONTRACTOR FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. THIS POSITION REQUIRES U.S. CITIZENSHIP.
Role Description:
Defense Unicorns is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join our Ark team, building an AI-native software development product that helps Mission Heroes create, package, and deliver secure applications into mission environments.
Ark bridges the gap between creating software and making it deployable. While AI coding tools make software development increasingly accessible, delivering applications into secure, regulated, and disconnected environments still requires specialized engineering expertise. Ark combines AI-driven workflows with UDS tooling to automate application development, packaging, validation, and delivery preparation.
This is an opportunity to help shape a rapidly evolving product at the intersection of AI, software engineering, and secure software delivery. You’ll work on complex challenges involving AI agent orchestration, isolated development environments, automated validation, and integrating AI capabilities with deterministic systems that produce reliable, deployable software.
As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll help shape the technical direction of Ark, own the design and delivery of complex capabilities, and collaborate with Engineering, Product, UX, and Mission Heroes to turn challenging customer problems into intuitive, reliable solutions. You’ll have opportunities to influence architecture decisions and help establish engineering practices as the product evolves.
What You’ll Work On:
Building AI-driven workflows that help users create, package, validate, and maintain mission applications
Developing agent orchestration capabilities that combine AI reasoning with deterministic tooling, validation, and human oversight
Creating secure, isolated development environments for executing AI agents and building software
Integrating UDS packaging, Kubernetes, and software delivery tooling into automated development workflows
Building systems that manage persistent application state, development workflows, and asynchronous execution
Developing automated testing and validation capabilities to ensure generated software and UDS packages are secure and deployable
Collaborating with Product, UX, and Mission Heroes to turn complex software development and delivery challenges into intuitive product experiences
Responsibilities:
Own the design, implementation, testing, and delivery of complex software features and systems
Drive pragmatic technical decisions and contribute to architecture across product components
Proactively identify and resolve ambiguity in collaboration with Product, UX, and Mission Heroes
Debug complex issues across Kubernetes, virtualization, storage, networking, and operating systems
Improve the reliability, security, performance, observability, and maintainability of our software
Review code, mentor teammates, and help establish strong engineering practices
Document technical decisions, communicate clearly, and collaborate effectively across teams
Travel Expectations/Requirements: 0-5%
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.
Preferred Experience and Qualifications:
5+ years of professional software engineering experience
Strong proficiency in a modern programming language (Go and TypeScript preferred)
Experience designing, building, and operating production software products
Experience integrating LLMs, AI agents, or AI-powered capabilities into software applications
Strong understanding of APIs, distributed systems, asynchronous workflows, and application architecture
Experience with Kubernetes, containers, and cloud-native application development
Experience building reliable, testable systems with automated validation and CI/CD pipelines
Ability to navigate ambiguity, evaluate technical tradeoffs, and independently deliver complex solutions
Strong communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills
Nice to Have:
Experience building AI agent orchestration systems, coding agents, or AI-powered developer tools
Familiarity with LLM evaluation, tool calling, MCP, and agent execution frameworks
Experience with secure sandboxing, isolated execution environments, or Kata Containers
Experience building developer platforms, CLIs, or software development automation
Familiarity with Zarf, Helm, Kubernetes operators, or software packaging workflows
Experience with software supply chain security, artifact validation, and deployment automation
Experience developing software for air-gapped, regulated, or restricted environments
Contributions to open-source projects or developer tooling
Skills
As published by ashby · 16 questions
Basics
Name, Email, Resume
Short answers (8)
- Phone Number
- Describe an application or workflow where you integrated an LLM, AI agent, or other AI capability. Walk through the architecture, how the AI interacted with tools or external systems, and one failure mode you had to address. If you have not shipped an AI-enabled system, describe the closest comparable system you have built and how you would approach this problem.
- Imagine you are building an AI coding agent that generates an application, runs tests, packages it, and prepares it for deployment. Which steps would you allow the agent to determine dynamically, which would you enforce through deterministic tooling or policies, and how would you handle failures or require human approval?
- LinkedIn Profile
- What is your primary GitHub profile? This is required for our technical assessment process, and failing to provide a GitHub will result in not being considered for the role.
- AI tools are changing how many engineers work and collaborate. Tell us about a recent time you used AI to better understand a complex technical concept or automate away a piece of tedious tech debt. What worked well, what did not, and what did you learn from the experience?
- Did a current Defense Unicorn refer you to this position and, if so, who was it?
- If yes, what event? optional
Pick from a list (7)
- I acknowledge that this position requires US citizenship and that I am a US citizen.
- Do you have experience coding in Go?
- Did you meet with or see Defense Unicorns while attending an event or conference (e.g. Kubecon)?
- In this question description we have provided a link to our California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) disclosure. Please acknowledge that you have been provided with this disclosure - Link included in question description.
- Are you legally authorized to work in the United States?
- Will you now or in the future require visa sponsorship?
- Do you hold an ACTIVE U.S. Government issued clearance? If so, what level? **Note: this position requires U.S. Citizenship.
Attachments (1)
- Cover Letter optional