Defense Unicorns

Defense Unicorns

Forward Deployed AI Engineer

United States - Remote · Senior · Contract

No sponsorship$149k-$201kDetected 13 days ago
TypeScriptFull-Stack DevelopmentElasticsearchAWSGCPAzureCloud PlatformsKubernetesTerraformHelmCI/CDMachine LearningData EngineeringLLMsRAGCybersecurityComplianceRecruitingHIPAAResearchLeadershipCommunication

About the role

  • The work centers on backend engineering, data pipelines, and retrieval systems that power agentic and generative AI capabilities on top of Defense Unicorns' core platform (Unified Defense Stack).
  • You'll deploy and operate these systems across cloud, on-prem, and air-gapped environments, then carry field insights back to product and engineering to improve the platform.
  • This is a customer-facing, delivery-focused role, not an ML research position.

Responsibilities

  • Architect, build, and deploy backend systems that power generative AI capabilities: APIs, data processing pipelines, integration layers, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), and context engineering patterns.
  • Serve as the technical face to customer leadership: translate complex technical work for non-technical stakeholders, build trust, and drive adoption.
  • Prototype and validate new capabilities using core products and design patterns, feeding lessons learned back into the product.
  • Comfort with ambiguity and shifting priorities. You take initiative, define your own work when direction is unclear, and deliver under pressure.
  • Background in document processing pipelines: parsing, chunking, embedding, and indexing at scale.
  • Building and improving security delivery
  • Building Kubernetes and cloud native applications

Requirements

  • Required Experience and
  • 4+ years of backend or full-stack engineering experience, with production-grade work in Python.
  • Experience designing and operating data pipelines, APIs, and integration layers in production.
  • Hands-on experience with information retrieval systems: keyword search, vector search, document parsing and chunking, reranking, or search engine internals (Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, or similar).
  • Working knowledge of RAG patterns or applied generative AI: connecting LLMs to real data sources in a production context.
  • Experience deploying or operating software in government, defense, or similarly regulated environments (or equivalent high-assurance contexts).
  • Experience deploying applications on Kubernetes in air-gapped or classified environments.
  • Familiarity with open-source LLMs/SLMs (Llama, Mixtral, Gemma, Phi), including inference frameworks, structured output, or fine-tuning.
  • Prior customer-facing or forward-deployed engineering experience.
  • Experience developing and maintaining LLM evaluation frameworks.

Nice to have

  • Conferences (travel, lodging, and fees)
  • Preferred Experience and Qualifications:
  • Active security clearance (Secret or above
  • TS/SCI preferred).

Skills

  • Eligibility to obtain a U.S. security clearance.
  • Preferred Experience and
  • Deploy and operate systems in cloud, on-prem, and air-gapped environments using Defense Unicorns' core platform and delivery patterns.
  • tooling, internal frameworks, and playbooks that make future deployments faster and more repeatable.

Compensation

  • Full compensation packages are based on candidate experience.

Benefits

  • Medical/Dental/Vision
  • Health Savings Account
  • Life Insurance
  • Disability Insurance
  • 401k Retirement Plan
  • Company Stock Options
  • Home Office Budget

Company info

  • 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
  • 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.
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This listing is sourced directly from Defense Unicorns's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.