Cloud-Native Solutions Architect: Autonomous Systems

Defense Unicorns; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401k retirement plan

Stock options

Home office budget

Paid time off

Job summary

Defense Unicorns seeks a Solutions Architect to help autonomous systems manufacturers, federal integrators, and commercial tech partners bring cloud-native software and edge data solutions into the Federal defense market. You will translate mission needs into practical architectures for drones, satellites, and weapons systems, operating across bandwidth-constrained environments.

The role requires bridging executive conversations, system designs, and hands-on discovery, plus collaboration with

Qualifications

• Experience designing distributed, cloud-native, edge, or mission-critical software systems.
• Understanding of Kubernetes, containers, software supply chains, deployment, and modern DevSecOps practices.
• Familiarity with data transport, messaging, networking, synchronization, and distributed-system architectures.
• Ability to reason about systems operating in disconnected, intermittent, limited-bandwidth, or resource-constrained environments.
• Experience working with defense, aerospace, autonomous systems, robotics, satellites, weapons systems, or other complex cyber-physical platforms is highly desirable.
• Experience working with Federal Systems Integrators, Department of Defense organizations, or companies selling technology into the federal government is preferred.
• Strong technical communication skills with the ability to explain complex architecture concepts to engineers, program leaders, executives, and government stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical discovery, whiteboarding sessions, architecture reviews, and customer workshops.

Responsibilities

• Facilitate technical discovery and architecture conversations with autonomous drone manufacturers, Federal Systems Integrators, defense technology companies, and mid-sized commercial companies pursuing federal opportunities.
• Work closely with customers to understand their platforms, mission requirements, existing software architecture, data flows, deployment models, and operational constraints.
• Identify where cloud-native technologies can improve the development, deployment, management, and sustainment of software running across drones, satellites, weapons systems, edge devices, and supporting infrastructure.
• Design and communicate architectures for deploying and operating cloud-native applications in distributed, edge, disconnected, and resource-constrained environments.
• Help customers understand how data transport, synchronization, messaging, and software distribution technologies can support information movement between tactical edge systems, platforms, and enterprise environments.
• Map Defense Unicorns capabilities and broader cloud-native technologies to customer use cases and system architectures.
• Partner with engineering, product, sales, and business development teams to translate customer requirements into technical solutions and product opportunities.
• Develop reference architectures, technical diagrams, integration approaches, demonstrations, and proofs of concept that illustrate how modern software can be incorporated into existing and next-generation platforms.
• Support Federal Systems Integrators and technology partners in incorporating Defense Unicorns solutions into larger federal programs and platform architectures.
• Help commercial technology companies understand the technical, architectural, and operational considerations associated with deploying their products into federal and defense environments.
• Serve as a trusted technical advisor to customers throughout the evaluation, integration, and adoption process.
• Capture recurring customer requirements and market signals to help inform Defense Unicorns product and technical strategy.

Skills

Cloud-native architectures

Kubernetes

Edge computing

Federal sales

Tools

GitOps

Job description

Defense Unicorns seeks a Solutions Architect to help autonomous systems manufacturers, federal integrators, and commercial tech partners bring cloud-native software and edge data solutions into the Federal defense market. You will translate mission needs into practical architectures for drones, satellites, and weapons systems, operating across bandwidth-constrained environments.

The role requires bridging executive conversations, system designs, and hands-on discovery, plus collaboration with