Associate Engineer - Data Platform

Defense Unicorns

25d•$102,000 - $138,000•Remote

About The Position

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.

Requirements

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

Nice To Haves

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
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

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