US Defense Engineering Lead

What You'll Do

• Lead, mentor, and grow a small, agile full-stack engineering team focused on delivering product capabilities tailored to US national security customers on top of the Mattermost platform.
• Own the end-to-end engineering delivery lifecycle: requirements, architecture, development, testing, and release.
• Collaborate with customers and forward-deployed engineers to capture requirements directly from the field and translate them into well-scoped, executable engineering work for the core team.
• Interface directly and professionally with US national security customers — building trust, managing expectations, and communicating technical trade-offs clearly to non-engineers.
• Partner with product and design stakeholders to define roadmaps that balance customer needs, platform constraints, and strategic priorities.
• Maintain a full-stack technical perspective, contributing to architecture decisions across frontend, backend, and infrastructure layers.
• Establish and uphold engineering standards for code quality, security, testing, and documentation appropriate for a defense-grade software environment.
• Champion the adoption of AI-powered development tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude, GitHub Copilot) across the team to accelerate velocity and automate repetitive engineering tasks.
• Actively manage team health: conduct regular 1:1s, identify growth opportunities, address blockers, and foster a culture of ownership and psychological safety.
• Participate in technical hiring and onboarding to expand the team as the mission scales.
• Provide accurate effort estimates, status updates, and risk assessments to leadership and program stakeholders on a regular cadence.

What We're Looking For

Required Qualifications

• BS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field/experience.
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 2+ years in an engineering management or tech lead role.
• Proven full-stack product development experience — comfortable owning decisions across frontend (React) and backend (Go, Node.js) layers.
• Demonstrated ability to lead small, agile teams in a fast-paced, high-accountability environment.
• Experience interfacing directly with customers or end users in a technical capacity — able to listen, synthesize, and communicate complex technical concepts clearly to non-engineers.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills for collaborating across distributed, remote teams and presenting to senior stakeholders.
• Proficiency with AI/LLM development tools (e.g., Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Claude) with a genuine commitment to integrating them into daily engineering workflows.
• US citizenship is required. This role may require the ability to obtain and maintain a US government security clearance in the future. Applicants must reside in the United States.
• Applicants must meet eligibility requirements for access to export-controlled information as defined by US export control laws, including EAR and ITAR.
• Strong personal alignment with the US national security mission and the communities it serves.
• Travel 1-2 weeks per quarter.

Clearance Requirements

• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance
• Active Secret clearance preferred; TS/SCI is a plus

Preferred Qualifications

• Previous experience working with or for the US Department of Defense (DoD), defense contractors, or the intelligence community.
• Familiarity with defense-specific software environments, including DDIL (Disconnected, Denied, Disrupted, Intermittent, and Limited) network conditions.
• Experience working fully remotely with distributed, global teams.
• Background building secure, compliant software for government or regulated industries.
• Experience hiring, growing, and retaining exceptional engineering talent in a remote environment.
• Prior work in open-source projects or platform-level software development.
• Contributions to Mattermost or similar collaboration/communications platforms.

Compensation

Posting Range: $180,000—$275,000 USD