Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Defense Unicorns is a company focused on delivering mission value through streamlined software delivery for national security missions. They are seeking a mission-driven Rust Software Engineer to design and implement resilient software systems that enable human-machine-AI teaming and autonomous capabilities for military operators. The role involves contributing across the full system lifecycle, from architecture to deployment, while collaborating with engineers and researchers.
Responsibilities
- Design and implement high-performance, distributed, software systems in Rust, targeting cloud-native as well as resource-constrained and edge computing environments
- Participate in system architecture, network topologies, hardware part evaluation, and engineering reviews for both existing product revisions and new systems
- Develop software/models systems that supports human-in-the-loop and human-on-the-loop autonomy workflows for distributed operations
- Build infrastructure enabling deterministic builds, reproducible environments, and configuration management to ensure traceability and maintainability
- Implement and maintain systems with over-the-air (OTA) update mechanisms for field-deployed systems - virtual machines, containers, and embedded packages
- Integrate software with microcontroller peripherals and hardware buses (SPI, I2C, UART, Ethernet, USB, AXI, etc.)
- Develop and execute comprehensive experiment and test strategies including:
- Unit testing
- Software-in-the-Loop (SITL)
- Hardware-in-the-Loop (HITL)
- Functional, end-to-end system/field/scale testing
- Collaborate with mission heroes and multidisciplinary teams to deploy and sustain systems, supporting integration and various exercises and operational events
- Optimize systems for performance, reliability, power consumption, and maintainability
Skills
- Professional experience in software engineering, embedded systems, or firmware development - delivering production-grade product
- Strong proficiency in Rust - experience in low-level, embedded or no_std environments a bonus
- Experience integrating with microcontroller peripherals and hardware interfaces (SPI, I2C, UART, Ethernet, USB, etc.)
- Familiarity with software design, algorithm implementation, debugging/testing/profiling, and performance optimization
- Working knowledge of: Distributed systems, data-distribution and network architectures
- Working knowledge of: Networking protocols and technologies (TCP/UDP, BLE/LoRa, routing)
- Working knowledge of: Trust systems, certificate management, and encryption schemes
- Working knowledge of: Modern data patterns, CRDTs, offline-first, synchronization/replication
- Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across engineering disciplines
- U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret / SCI security clearance
- Experience developing autonomy, robotics, or human-machine-AI teaming systems
- Experience applying machine learning techniques, including supervised/unsupervised learning, clustering, and classification
- Experience with software-defined radio, MANET, and industrial/robotics communications systems
- Experience optimizing systems for speed, size, power consumption, and cost
- Experience contributing to open-source projects or industry standards bodies
- Experience deploying systems in contested or disconnected edge environments
Benefits
- 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 Years
- Paid Parental Leave
- Reimbursement for approved trainings/subscriptions
- Conferences (travel, lodging, and fees)
Company Overview
Defense Unicorns is a software startup that provides open-source software and AI capabilities for national security systems. It was founded in 2021, and is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA, with a workforce of 51-200 employees. Its website is https://www.defenseunicorns.com.