Senior Software Engineer - Virtual Machines (RD222)

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

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.

Remote - USA

$148,750 — $201,250 USD

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.

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.

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.

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

Medical/Dental/Vision

Premiums are 100% Company Paid

Health Savings Account

Life Insurance

Disability Insurance

401k Retirement Plan

Company Stock Options

Home Office Budget

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

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.

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