Solution Architect - Autonomous Systems & Industrial Base (ComS058)
at Defense Unicorns · 101-250 employees
Series B · $136M · Jan 2026
- Location
- San Francisco Or Los Angeles, CA
- Posted
- 5d ago
awsgcpazurekubernetesterraformpulumi
at Defense Unicorns · 101-250 employees
Defense Unicorns provides airgap-native software delivery infrastructure that lets U.S. military systems receive secure, rapid updates in disconnected environments.
<h1><strong>Solutions Architect — Autonomous Systems & Industrial Base</strong></h1> <h2><strong>Role Overview</strong></h2> <p>Defense Unicorns is seeking a Solutions Architect to work with autonomous systems manufacturers, Federal Systems Integrators, and commercial technology companies looking to deliver capabilities into the Federal defense market.</p> <p>This role sits at the intersection of customer mission needs, complex hardware platforms, and modern cloud-native software. The Solutions Architect will facilitate technical and strategic conversations with customers and partners to understand their systems, identify integration opportunities, and define how cloud-native software, data transport technologies, and modern software deployment patterns can be incorporated into drones, satellites, weapons systems, and other mission-critical platforms.</p> <p>The ideal candidate can move comfortably between executive-level conversations, system architecture discussions, and hands-on technical discovery. They should be able to translate mission and business requirements into practical architectures that account for constrained, disconnected, intermittent, and bandwidth-limited environments.</p> <h2><strong>Key Responsibilities</strong></h2> <ul> <li>Facilitate technical discovery and architecture conversations with autonomous drone manufacturers, Federal Systems Integrators, defense technology companies, and mid-sized commercial companies pursuing federal opportunities.</li> <li>Work closely with customers to understand their platforms, mission requirements, existing software architecture, data flows, deployment models, and operational constraints.</li> <li>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.</li> <li>Design and communicate architectures for deploying and operating cloud-native applications in distributed, edge, disconnected, and resource-constrained environments.</li> <li>Help customers understand how data transport, synchronization, messaging, and software distribution technologies can support information movement between tactical edge systems, platforms, and enterprise environments.</li> <li>Map Defense Unicorns capabilities and broader cloud-native technologies to customer use cases and system architectures.</li> <li>Partner with engineering, product, sales, and business development teams to translate customer requirements into technical solutions and product opportunities.</li> <li>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.</li> <li>Support Federal Systems Integrators and technology partners in incorporating Defense Unicorns solutions into larger federal programs and platform architectures.</li> <li>Help commercial technology companies understand the technical, architectural, and operational considerations associated with deploying their products into federal and defense environments.</li> <li>Serve as a trusted technical advisor to customers throughout the evaluation, integration, and adoption process.</li> <li>Capture recurring customer requirements and market signals to help inform Defense Unicorns product and technical strategy.</li> </ul> <h2><strong>What Success Looks Like</strong></h2> <p>A successful Solutions Architect in this role will be able to walk into a conversation with a drone manufacturer, satellite company, weapons-system developer, systems integrator, or commercial software company and quickly understand how their system operates, where software and data move through the architecture, and where modern cloud-native approaches can create meaningful operational value.</p> <p>They will help customers move from broad questions such as “How do we bring cloud-native software onto this platform?” to a concrete architecture for how applications are packaged, transported, deployed, updated, secured, and operated across the system.</p> <h2><strong>Desired Experience</strong></h2> <ul> <li>Experience designing or supporting distributed, cloud-native, edge, or mission-critical software systems.</li> <li>An understanding of Kubernetes, containers, software supply chains, application deployment, and modern DevSecOps practices.</li> <li>Familiarity with data transport, messaging, networking, synchronization, and distributed-system architectures.</li> <li>Ability to reason about systems operating in disconnected, intermittent, limited-bandwidth, or resource-constrained environments.</li> <li>Experience working with defense, aerospace, autonomous systems, robotics, satellites, weapons systems, or other complex cyber-physical platforms is highly desirable.</li> <li>Experience working with Federal Systems Integrators, Department of Defense organizations, or companies selling technology into the federal government is preferred.</li> <li>Strong technical communication skills with the ability to explain complex architecture concepts to engineers, program leaders, executives, and government stakeholders.</li> <li>Demonstrated ability to lead technical discovery, whiteboarding sessions, architecture reviews, and customer workshops.</li> <li>Comfortable operating in ambiguous environments where the problem is not fully defined and the architecture must be developed collaboratively with the customer.</li> </ul> <h2><strong>Ideal Background</strong></h2> <p>This role may be a strong fit for someone who has previously worked as a Solutions Architect, Systems Architect, Platform Engineer, Cloud Architect, Field Engineer, Sales Engineer, or Technical Product Leader supporting defense, aerospace, autonomous systems, or highly distributed computing environments.</p> <p><em><strong>Role primarily based out of Los Angeles and San Francisco Areas.