Senior Technical Mission Director - Government AI Delivery

Defense Unicorns

Springfield (VA)

On-site

USD 145,000 - 185,000

Full time

19 hours ago

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Job summary

Defense Unicorns seeks 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, establishing the Agile tempo to move from prototype to operational capability.

The ideal candidate is an Agile delivery leader with deep fluency in software, cloud, DevSecOps, AI/ML, data, and platform engineering.

Qualifications

Local to the National Capital Region (NCR) and able to support regular onsite work at a government facility in Springfield, Virginia; available for increasing onsite/SCIF interaction as the effort matures.
7+ years leading Agile software, technology, or mission programs, preferably in government or other mission-critical environments.
Demonstrated hands-on experience with Scrum and Agile delivery, including backlog management, sprint planning, dependency management, retrospectives, and release planning.
Experience leading cross-functional teams and coordinating multiple concurrent technical workstreams, government stakeholders, and technology vendors.
Strong technical fluency in modern software delivery, DevSecOps, cloud, Kubernetes, CI/CD, AI/ML, and data platforms.
Ability to understand technical architecture, dependencies, integration risks, and engineering tradeoffs well enough to drive informed program decisions.
Exceptional communication, organization, facilitation, and problem-solving skills with the ability to operate effectively in high-tempo, ambiguous environments.

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.