Senior Software Engineer - Open Source (RD217)
Defenseunicorns · Remote, United States
About this role
## Role Description Defense Unicorns seeks an experienced Software Engineer to help build, maintain, and steward our open source products and the broader ecosystems they depend on. You’ll collaborate closely with product managers, designers, engineers, community contributors, and end users to ensure we’re building the right solutions—and building them well. As an Open Source Software Engineer, you’ll operate at the intersection of community stewardship, product development, and technical execution. You’ll help lead the design, implementation, and maintenance of cloud native software that has direct impact on mission outcomes. You bring strong **Golang** experience, a love for cloud native technologies, and a willingness to learn **TypeScript** to support our broader OSS ecosystem. Over time, you may also contribute across additional languages and communities, including **Rust**, as our open source work evolves. --- ## Responsibilities - Work with internal engineers and open source community contributors on features, bug fixes, reviews, and releases through clear communication, collaboration, and responsible stewardship - Engage with open source communities, industry partners, and standards bodies via common platforms (e.g., Slack, GitHub) to help move our projects and upstream ecosystems forward, including facilitating community meetings - Amplify the voice of our projects within the ecosystem by delivering a mission-focused end-user experience and collaborating with users to produce case studies, blogs, or conference presentations - Proactively identify and resolve ambiguity across product requirements, community needs, and upstream project constraints - Work proactively, manage time efficiently, and thrive in a vibrant remote work environment ✨🦄 - Build and integrate secure, interoperable cloud native software for defense environments while contributing improvements back to relevant open source projects where appropriate - Own architecture decisions and ensure technical quality across open source codebases, APIs, and contributor workflows - Develop comprehensive documentation, including design proposals, contribution guides, user documentation, and maintenance guides - Stay abreast of emerging cloud native, open source, and secure software supply chain technologies to inform product enhancements and ecosystem contributions - Provide technical mentorship and elevate engineering standards across the team - Influence product direction through deep understanding of user needs and system constraints --- ## Travel Expectations - **5–15%** --- ## Preferred Experience and Qualifications - **5+ years** experience with software engineering - Experience building or maintaining open source software tools, especially in cloud native, software lifecycle, or software supply chain domains - Proficient in **Go**, interest in learning **TypeScript**, and contributing across additional modern languages such as **Rust** - Strong understanding of system design, library and software APIs, **Kubernetes**, and cloud architecture (e.g., **AWS**, **Azure**) - Excited to assess intricate problems, propose solutions, and implement them effectively - Experience contributing to open source projects and participating in open source communities (involvement with **CNCF**, **ASF**, **OpenSSF**, or similar is a huge plus) - Familiar with core Kubernetes concepts, including controllers, operators, and CRDs - Strong communication and collaboration skills; comfo
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