Platform Engineer
- Salary
- $123,250 - $166,750
- Level
- Mid
Not stated in the posting: work type, visa.
Open. First seen 2 October 2026.
About the role
EMPLOYER IS A CONTRACTOR FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. THIS POSITION REQUIRES U.S. CITIZENSHIP.
Role Description:
Defense Unicorns is seeking a Platform Engineer to support the deployment and maintenance of UDS within a secure, bare-metal environment. You will serve as a bridge between application teams and the platform, advocating best practices and helping ensure that the platform is reliable, secure, and scalable. The ideal candidate is a strong problem-solver with hands-on experience in Kubernetes, bare-metal or on-premises infrastructure, and deploying applications onto Kubernetes-based platforms.
Responsibilities:
Defense Unicorns's standard text
The listed responsibilities are not exhaustive and additional responsibilities may be assigned based on the evolving needs of the organization. We are seeking a dynamic individual who is able to adapt and take on new responsibilities as they arise.
- Support the architecture, deployment, configuration, and testing of bare-metal infrastructure, including GPU compute, storage, and networking
- Deploy, configure, maintain, and troubleshoot UDS and Kubernetes-based platform services
- Develop and manage infrastructure as code (IaC) and configuration to enable consistent, repeatable deployments
- Support secure software delivery, including container images, registries, packages, and deployment artifacts
- Collaborate with mission stakeholders, partner organizations, and Defense Unicorns engineering teams to identify technical requirements and resolve deployment challenges
- Collaborate with mission stakeholders, partner organizations, and Defense Unicorns engineering teams to identify technical requirements and resolve platform challenges
Travel Expectations/Requirements: 10%-15%
Preferred Experience and Qualifications:
- Active Secret/Top Secret Security Clearance
- Experience deploying and operating Kubernetes or containerized platforms in bare-metal or on-premises environments (deploying, managing, and troubleshooting clusters and workloads)
- Experience with infrastructure as code tools (e.g., Terraform, Pulumi, or similar)
- Proficiency with CI/CD tooling, particularly GitLab CI or equivalent pipeline platforms
- Working knowledge of Linux/Unix operating systems and command-line administration
- Experience with cloud platforms, preferably AWS (EC2, EKS, IAM, S3, VPC)
- Experience supporting GPU-enabled infrastructure or workloads
- Ability to read and write YAML fluently for Kubernetes manifests, CRDs, Helm charts, and pipeline configurations
- Strong communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to work effectively with partner engineering teams
- Possess or ability to obtain a DoD 8570 IAT II certification (e.g., Security+ CE)
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
$123,250—$166,750 USD
Defense Unicorns's standard text
Who We Are
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.
What We Do
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.
Who We Serve
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.
What We Work On
- 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
Benefits Our Unicorns Enjoy
Defense Unicorns's standard text
Health:
- Medical/Dental/Vision
- Premiums are 100% Company Paid
- Health Savings Account
- Life Insurance
- Disability Insurance
Financial:
- 401k Retirement Plan
- Company Stock Options
- Home Office Budget
Leave:
- 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
Learning:
- Reimbursement for approved trainings/subscriptions
- Conferences (travel, lodging, and fees)
Defense Unicorns's standard text
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.
CCPA DISCLOSURE
What this role asks for
Particular to this role
IAM · Unix
Rare in Defense Unicorns's other 37 open postings.
Standard for DevOps / SRE / cloud roles
CI/CD · Linux
Common in DevOps / SRE / cloud postings at any company.
In most of Defense Unicorns's ads
AWS · Azure · GCP · Kubernetes · Pulumi · Terraform
Named in most of its open postings, whatever the role.
46% of this description is written for the role. The rest is Defense Unicorns's standard text, folded away below.
Read against Defense Unicorns's other open postings on this site.
The team: Federal Delivery HIRES STEADILY
This role is one of 19 open in Federal Delivery. 6 were posted in the last 30 days and the oldest in March: a team that hires all year rather than one being built.
WHAT THE TEAM WORKS WITH, ACROSS ITS POSTINGS
AWS (19 of 19), Azure (19 of 19), GCP (19 of 19), Kubernetes (19 of 19), Pulumi (19 of 19), Terraform (19 of 19), CI/CD (17 of 19)
OTHER ROLES ON THIS TEAM
- Senior Platform Engineer posted Oct 15
- Software Engineer - Software Defined Networking (SDN) posted Oct 1
- Senior Platform Engineer (FedD239) posted Sep 29
- Senior Data Engineer (FedD238) posted Sep 29
- Technical Lead/Platform Solutions Architect (FedD236) posted Sep 29
- Senior Platform Engineer posted Sep 22
- Platform Engineer posted Sep 3
- Platform Engineer posted Sep 1
- Senior Platform Engineer (FedD202) posted Aug 26
- Platform Engineer posted Aug 10
- Technical Lead - Autonomous & Unmanned Systems (FedD179) posted Aug 6
- Platform Engineer - FedD180/FedD181 posted Aug 4
- Senior Platform Engineer (FedD144) posted Jul 10
- FDE Data Engineer- Space (FedD141/FedD147) posted Jun 19
- Platform Engineer (FedD145) posted Jun 1
- Senior Solutions Architect (FedS063) posted May 28
- Software Engineer (FedD105) posted Apr 7
- Data Engineer (FedD024) posted Mar 20
From the team and dates on Defense Unicorns's own job board.
Other openings for this role
2 open postings for this role in San Antonio, Texas, first posted 2 October 2026. The company is likely hiring for more than one position. None has been taken down and posted again.
- 2 October 2026 – open (this posting)
- 2 October 2026 – open
Salary context
30 other open postings titled Platform Engineer state a salary: median USD 155,000 to USD 250,000 a year.
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