Associate Engineer - Data Platform
Defense Unicorns
| Company | Defense Unicorns |
| Category | Engineering |
| Location | Remote |
| Remote | Remote |
| Employment | Not stated |
| Level | Not stated |
| Salary | Not stated by the employer |
| Posted | 15 Jun 2026 |
| Last verified | 30 Jul 2026 |
| Source | Employer career page (greenhouse) |
Description
Role Description
Defense Unicorns is seeking an Associate Engineer who is energized by learning, ready to get their hands dirty, and genuinely motivated by knowing that software actually works — not just that it deploys. This is a role for someone early in their career who wants to grow quickly in a rigorous technical environment and contribute to systems that matter.
You will own real work from day one: packaging and deploying open source software, writing test suites that give the team confidence to ship, and building the tooling and documentation that make complex distributed systems understandable and demonstrable. You will work directly with other engineers and product leaders who will invest in your growth. If you find satisfaction in breaking things on purpose, documenting what you find, and making sure the next person can reproduce it — this role is a strong fit.
Responsibilities
Write and maintain test suites — integration, end-to-end, and regression — that give the team confidence to ship
Write automated tests and test documentation that any engineer can reproduce and act on
Package and deploy open source software components in Kubernetes environments
Build and maintain seed data tooling and scripts that make the platform demonstrable from scratch
Contribute to internal tooling, dashboards, and documentation
Write clear bug reports and reproduction steps that the team can act on immediately
Participate actively in code review, seeking feedback, and growing your technical judgment
Travel Expectations/Requirements
Travel: 10-20%, primarily for customer engagements and company gatherings.
What You'll Work On
Test suites and validation tooling that give the team confidence to ship a new capability
Deployment automation and tooling that let any engineer stand up the full platform from scratch
Real bug reports and edge case documentation that directly accelerate how quickly other engineers can identify and resolve issues
Runbooks and demo scripts that make a complex distributed system legible to anyone picking it up for the first time
Required Qualifications
Degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical field — or equivalent demonstrated hands-on technical ability
Active and effective user of AI-assisted development tools (GitHub Copilot, Claude, Cursor, or similar) — you know how to prompt well, validate output, and catch when the model is wrong
An orientation toward testing and validation — you find satisfaction in knowing that something works, not just that it runs; you break things intentionally and document what you find
U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain a security clearance
Preferred Experience and Qualifications
Comfort with at least one programming language — Python, Go, TypeScript, or similar; willingness to learn what the stack requires
Genuine curiosity about how distributed systems work and fail — you want to understand the system, not just run scripts against it
Comfort with command-line tooling and Linux environments
Ability to write clearly: bug reports, documentation, and runbooks that another engineer can follow
Comfortable working asynchronously in a remote environment ✨🦄
Amazing To Haves
Any exposure to Kubernetes — even running a local cluster (k3s, k0s, minikube) counts
Familiarity with containerization (Docker, container images)
Experience with any database — relational (Postgres, MySQL), document (MongoDB), key-value (Redis), or similar
Coursework or personal projects involving data, AI, or machine learning
Interest in defense, national security software, or government technology
Contributions to open source projects, even small ones
Don't have all the preferred experience or qualifications? Studies show that underrepresented groups like women and people of color are less lik
995,367 openings. Erioun finds yours.Scored against your own profile, every hour.Try the radar →