Mission Manager

As a Mission Manager at Defense Unicorns, you will lead the design, coordination, and execution of multiple large-scale, community-facing hackathon events throughout the year. This is not a traditional program management role. We are looking for someone who is energized by bringing people together, thinks creatively about problem-solving at scale, and wants to make a tangible impact across the Department of War innovation ecosystem.

You will serve as the primary point of contact for government mission heroes, industry partners, and vendors, while leading a small internal team and managing partner relationships. You will own the full lifecycle of each event, from planning through execution and stakeholder communication, ensuring that every hackathon reflects Defense Unicorns' values and delivers meaningful mission outcomes.

• Serve as Defense Unicorns' primary point of contact with government mission heroes across the DoW
• Own the prime contractor relationship, ensuring program commitments, compliance, and performance expectations are met
• Build and sustain productive working relationships across government, subcontractors, and the broader DoW innovation community
• Represent Defense Unicorns professionally and authentically in all external engagements

• Own end-to-end planning and execution of multiple hackathon events per year
• Coordinate logistics, timelines, and deliverables across internal staff, government stakeholders, and subcontractors
• Translate mission requirements and stakeholder goals into actionable event plans and clear team direction
• Continuously improve the hackathon model based on participant feedback and program outcomes

• Lead a small internal Defense Unicorns team while managing a network of subcontractors supporting event delivery
• Own subcontractor relationships, including scoping, performance management, and accountability
• Foster a collaborative, high-energy team environment aligned with Defense Unicorns' culture and values

• Experience managing complex, multi-stakeholder programs or events in a government or defense-adjacent environment
• Experience serving in a prime contractor role, including managing subcontractor relationships and contract compliance
• Demonstrated ability to coordinate across government, industry, and subcontractor partners simultaneously
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with confidence engaging senior government and industry stakeholders
• A proactive, creative mindset with a track record of building something that didn't exist before

• Experience planning or executing large-scale community or innovation events such as hackathons, integration events, or exercises
• Familiarity with the DoW innovation ecosystem, including programs, procurement, and mission priorities
• Background in or exposure to DevSecOps, platform engineering, or software delivery
• Experience managing subcontractors and coordinating multi-party delivery 
• Comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments where no two events are the same

Travel is expected multiple times per year to support event execution and stakeholder engagement, primarily within the continental United States, but occasionally OCONUS as required.

Defense Unicorns delivers mission value by streamlining software delivery so our customers can focus on the most important challenges. We share a vision of freedom and security for the advancement of progress and innovation. Our commitment to this vision, and to our mission-driven customers, means a commitment to speed, user experience and optionality, without compromising security. Our team is composed of innovators, software engineers, and veterans with decades of experience delivering technology programs across the federal market.

We create and deliver secure solutions for continuous software integration and delivery. Defense Unicorns consolidates the best practices for security pipelines, testing, and deployment automation in order to meet the high security requirements valued by mission owners. Our solutions are agnostic by design and we believe that growing a robust ecosystem of secure, cloud-native software solutions can help enterprise customers inside and outside the federal market buy and integrate software more easily.

Defense Unicorns’ customers are mission-focused leaders across public and private enterprises. We proudly support defense and civil agencies across the U.S. government and we work closely with the creators of leading-edge software solutions to deliver value to the mission-owner by improving the security and consumability of commercial software products.

• Kubernetes
• Cloud Environments (AWS/GCP and Azure)
• Infrastructure-as-code (like Terraform/Pulumi)
• Continuous Delivery and automation tooling
• GitOps
• Containers
• CNCF projects and open source products and packages
• Helm/Kustomize-Value Stream Mapping
• Building and improving security delivery
• Building Kubernetes and cloud native applications

• Medical/Dental/Vision
• Premiums are 100% Company Paid
• Health Savings Account
• Life Insurance
• Disability Insurance

• 401k Retirement Plan
• Company Stock Options
• Home Office Budget

• We offer all full-time Unicorns Flexible Time Off (FTO) plus all Federal Holidays, one week for Thanksgiving, and two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s
• Paid Parental Leave

• Reimbursement for approved trainings/subscriptions
• Conferences (travel, lodging, and fees)

Don’t have all the preferred experience or qualifications? Studies show that underrepresented groups like women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs if they don't meet every requirement listed. 

At Defense Unicorns, we're committed to diversity. If you're enthusiastic about the role but don't match every criteria, we encourage you to apply. You could be the perfect fit for this or another role! Defense Unicorns is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, union status and/or beliefs, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

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