Senior Software Engineer - Virtual Machines (RD222)
Summary
Senior engineer building UDS VM, a Defense Unicorns product for running and managing virtual machines alongside containerized workloads on the UDS Kubernetes platform in secure, air-gapped government environments. Day-to-day: Go-based Kubernetes APIs and operators, VM image tooling, networking, storage, and security work. Remote (US); requires U.S. citizenship.
EMPLOYER IS A CONTRACTOR FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. THIS POSITION REQUIRES U.S. CITIZENSHIP.
Role Description:
Defense Unicorns is building UDS VM, a new product that enables Mission Heroes to securely deploy, operate, and manage virtual machines alongside containerized workloads within the UDS platform.
Many mission-critical applications cannot easily move to containers because of operating system dependencies, vendor requirements, or existing approvals. Today, running these workloads on UDS often requires custom engineering. We’re building a supported, repeatable path for running VMs in secure, disconnected environments, with the security controls and evidence needed for authorization.
The work sits at the intersection of product software engineering, Kubernetes, virtualization, and security. We’re building software—not simply operating infrastructure—to make virtual machines first-class workloads within the UDS ecosystem.
As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll shape technical decisions, independently own complex product capabilities, and collaborate across engineering, product, and UX to deliver reliable, intuitive solutions. As this new team grows, you’ll help establish strong engineering practices; one of our Senior openings also offers an opportunity to provide hands-on technical leadership.
What You’ll Work On:
- Building Kubernetes tooling and APIs for orchestrating and managing virtual machine workloads
- Building tooling to inspect, convert, prepare, and package VM images for disconnected delivery
- Integrating virtual machine workloads with UDS networking, observability, and security capabilities
- Creating VM management workflows for inventory, status, power controls, and console access
- Solving problems across VM lifecycle, persistent storage, networking, and image distribution
- Making VM deployments reproducible, secure, and supportable in air-gapped environments
- Working with Product, UX, and Mission Heroes to turn operational needs into useful product capabilities
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: 5-10%
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 Go or another modern programming language, with an interest in developing Go-based systems
- Experience designing and building software that interacts with Kubernetes or other distributed systems
- Strong understanding of APIs, system design, and software architecture
- Experience developing backend services, controllers, operators, or developer tooling
- Familiarity with Linux systems, containers, and operating system concepts
- Experience building, testing, and operating production software
- Ability to navigate ambiguity, evaluate technical tradeoffs, and independently drive complex work to completion
- Strong problem-solving skills and ability to debug across multiple system boundaries
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to influence technical direction and mentor other engineers
Great to Have:
- Experience with KubeVirt, QEMU/KVM, or other virtualization technologies
- Experience developing Kubernetes operators, controllers, or custom resource definitions (CRDs)
- Experience configuring, managing, or troubleshooting Windows virtual machines
- Familiarity with VM image formats, conversion, migration, and lifecycle management
- Experience with Kubernetes networking and storage
- Experience building CLI tools, particularly in Go
- Familiarity with Zarf, OCI artifacts, or software packaging and distribution
- Experience working in air-gapped, disconnected, or regulated environments
- Contributions to Kubernetes, KubeVirt, or other CNCF open-source projects
- Experience building security-focused software or integrating systems with identity, access control, and observability platforms
Full compensation packages are based on candidate experience. Compensation ranges are established using national benchmarking data and apply across all geographic locations within the United States.
Who We Are
Defense Unicorns delivers mission value by streamlining software delivery so our customers can focus on the most important challenges. We share a vision of freedom and security for the advancement of progress and innovation. Our commitment to this vision, and to our mission-driven customers, means a commitment to speed, user experience and optionality, without compromising security. Our team is composed of innovators, software engineers, and veterans with decades of experience delivering technology programs across the federal market.
What We Do
We create and deliver secure solutions for continuous software integration and delivery. Defense Unicorns consolidates the best practices for security pipelines, testing, and deployment automation in order to meet the high security requirements valued by mission owners. Our solutions are agnostic by design and we believe that growing a robust ecosystem of secure, cloud-native software solutions can help enterprise customers inside and outside the federal market buy and integrate software more easily.
Who We Serve
Defense Unicorns’ customers are mission-focused leaders across public and private enterprises. We proudly support defense and civil agencies across the U.S. government and we work closely with the creators of leading-edge software solutions to deliver value to the mission-owner by improving the security and consumability of commercial software products.
What We Work On
- Kubernetes
- Cloud Environments (AWS/GCP and Azure)
- Infrastructure-as-code (like Terraform/Pulumi)
- Continuous Delivery and automation tooling
- GitOps
- Containers
- CNCF projects and open source products and packages
- Helm/Kustomize-Value Stream Mapping
- Building and improving security delivery
- Building Kubernetes and cloud native applications
Benefits Our Unicorns Enjoy
Health:
- Medical/Dental/Vision
- Premiums are 100% Company Paid
- Health Savings Account
- Life Insurance
- Disability Insurance
Financial:
- 401k Retirement Plan
- Company Stock Options
- Home Office Budget
Leave:
- We offer all full-time Unicorns Flexible Time Off (FTO) plus all Federal Holidays, one week for Thanksgiving, and two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s
- Paid Parental Leave
Learning:
- Reimbursement for approved trainings/subscriptions
- Conferences (travel, lodging, and fees)
Don’t have all the preferred experience or qualifications? Studies show that underrepresented groups like women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs if they don't meet every requirement listed.
At Defense Unicorns, we're committed to diversity. If you're enthusiastic about the role but don't match every criteria, we encourage you to apply. You could be the perfect fit for this or another role! Defense Unicorns is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, union status and/or beliefs, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.
CCPA DISCLOSURE
Skills
As published by greenhouse · 16 questions · 4 written answers
Basics
First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone, Resume/CV, Cover Letter
Short answers (5)
- Preferred First Name optional
- 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.
- 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.
Written answers (4)
- Describe a project where you worked with KubeVirt, QEMU/KVM, or another virtualization technology. What were you trying to accomplish, what was your specific contribution, and what technical challenges did you encounter?
- Walk us through a situation where you configured, managed, or troubleshot Windows virtual machines in a virtualized or Kubernetes-based environment. What was the issue, how did you investigate it, and what ultimately resolved it?
- Describe a project involving virtual machine images, such as creating, converting, importing, migrating, or updating them. What image formats and tools did you use, what complications arose, and how did you verify the resulting images worked as expected?
- 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?
