Software Project Lead

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Lead the software design, architecture, delivery, and deployment for the program.

• Take responsibility for delivery; maintain transparency regarding scope, schedule, and risks, and escalate issues promptly.

• Prefer established, open-source, and off-the-shelf tools, opting to reuse existing solutions rather than creating new ones from the ground up.

• Collaborate with the customer and end users to gather requirements, transforming their needs into a design and plan, which includes user experience and UX direction.

• Act as DEFCON's engineering representative to the customer and facilitate discussions on how our software will integrate into their network.

• Communicate effectively across diverse audiences: conduct stakeholder workshops and bridge the gap between the customer, project manager, subject-matter experts, and the optimization and data-science teams.

• Propel the technical vision and ensure the program remains aligned with it.

• Coordinate efforts among the project manager, subject-matter experts, and software team, organize the workflow, define what constitutes "done," and help remove obstacles for the team.

• Guide a small software team as the project scales.

• Oversee the release cadence from capability intake through demonstration and deployment, ensuring alignment with government timelines.

• Manage the transition from unclassified to secure delivery: design software that operates unchanged in the government's secure environment.

• Control the data and schema contract that allows the application to securely ingest previously unseen data, ensuring unclassified fixtures and secure-side data remain in strict parity.

• Manage the end-to-end transfer process: offline, self-contained packaging, the low-to-high move, and a secure-side smoke test, addressing this early to avoid impacting the critical path.

• Maintain sound CI/CD practices (testing, security scanning) as part of standard engineering routines, collaborating with the security team on any necessary program accreditation.

⛳️ Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in building and delivering production software, including at least one system owned end-to-end as the senior technical authority, rather than just a component.

• Expertise in front-end and data visualization engineering (e.g., React/TypeScript or equivalent): you can design and personally develop the core surfaces of a data-visualization product.

• A proven leader, not merely a director: this is a small team initially lacking additional software depth, so you will write and review code while guiding the developers on the project.

• Experience with unclassified-to-secure delivery: developing software in an open environment that functions unchanged in a government secure or air-gapped setting, managing the data and schema contract, and overseeing the transfer process. While sound CI/CD practices are expected, deep RMF and ATO experience is a bonus, not a necessity.

• Strong instincts for requirements and architecture: capable of engaging with a customer unfamiliar with software, extracting their needs, and converting them into a design and plan.

• Ability to collaborate with an optimization scientist: familiar enough with the analytical core (optimization, dependency management, critical-path analysis) to define contracts between the engine and UI and assess feasibility, without directly managing the models.

• Experience leading small teams and coordinating across roles (PM, SMEs, data scientists, operations research and analytics, security), with a focus on customer engagement in a government context.

• US Citizenship Required

• Active Secret Clearance

• Willingness to travel up to 25% to customer sites, Defcon AI HQ, and vendor facilities as necessary.

🏝️ Benefits

• A fully remote, results-oriented environment

• Competitive salary, bonus, and equity package

• 100% employer-paid, comprehensive health insurance including medical, dental, and vision for you and your family

• Unlimited paid time off, subject to manager’s approval

• Flexible work environment where you can manage your workday

• 14 weeks of fully-paid parental leave