Senior Agile Mission Director: AI/Cloud for Government

Defense Unicorns; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Defense Unicorns is seeking a senior Technical Mission Director to embed with a government team, leading a fast-moving AI and software modernization effort. You will own day-to-day execution across government stakeholders, engineering teams, and commercial partners, driving agile cadence and prioritizing actions in a high-tempo environment.

The role requires strong Scrum discipline, credible technical fluency across software, cloud, DevSecOps, AI/ML, data platforms, and a track record of turning

Qualifications

• Active TS/SCI clearance required.
• Experience leading Agile software or mission programs in government or critical environments.
• Hands-on Scrum delivery with backlog, sprint planning, dependency management, retrospectives.

Responsibilities

• Own day-to-day execution for a multidisciplinary government/industry team and establish the Agile operating rhythm, including Scrum ceremonies, backlog management, sprint planning, reviews, retrospectives, and release planning.
• Coordinate government stakeholders and multiple technology vendors, keeping priorities, dependencies, milestones, and technical risks visible and driving blockers to resolution.
• Lead daily cross-vendor synchronization without allowing meetings to become a substitute for execution; create clear owners, decisions, and next actions.
• Maintain an integrated delivery plan and communicate concise updates on mission outcomes, technical risk, resource needs, decisions, and schedule.
• Work closely with the Technical Solutions Architect and engineering leads across platform, DevSecOps, data, and AI/agentic disciplines to keep execution aligned with the evolving architecture.
• Maintain enough technical depth to recognize integration, security, data, deployment, or architecture issues early and engage the right experts quickly.
• Coordinate the transition from prototype environments into classified operational environments, including readiness, dependencies, and increasing onsite/SCIF collaboration.
• Act as a trusted technical thought partner to government customers: surface risks, frame options, challenge assumptions constructively, and help translate mission needs into executable technical priorities.
• Identify follow-on mission needs, expansion opportunities, and adjacent use cases; understand the customer's acquisition and buying motion and partner with DU growth leadership to shape actionable opportunities.
• Capture lessons learned and repeatable delivery patterns, continuously reducing coordination overhead and improving engineering velocity.
• Build durable customer relationships and represent Defense Unicorns as a technical thought leader rather than simply a delivery resource.

Skills

Active TS/SCI clearance

Local to NCR

7+ years Agile delivery

Scrum ceremonies

Cross-functional leadership

Technical fluency: software/cloud/Dev0

Architecture awareness

Communication & facilitation

Tools

OpenShift

GitLab

NVIDIA AI

Enterprise data platforms

Job description

Defense Unicorns is seeking a senior Technical Mission Director to embed with a government team, leading a fast-moving AI and software modernization effort. You will own day-to-day execution across government stakeholders, engineering teams, and commercial partners, driving agile cadence and prioritizing actions in a high-tempo environment.

The role requires strong Scrum discipline, credible technical fluency across software, cloud, DevSecOps, AI/ML, data platforms, and a track record of turning