Junior Engineer - Tier 1 Helpdesk Support

About the Role

Defense Unicorns is looking for a Junior Engineer to serve as Tier 1 helpdesk support for the Shipmates team. This position offers a direct path for growth within a cloud-based platform environment, moving beyond daily support to deeper technical involvement.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary point of contact for Tier 1 end-user support, triaging issues and escalating as needed.
• Handle user permissions and access requests for mission applications.
• Troubleshoot device usage and general application access problems.
• Triage development team tickets, routing them to the appropriate teams.
• Manage daily ticket flow using JIRA Service Management and participate in an on-call rotation.
• Develop and maintain internal documentation, runbooks, and triage procedures.
• Contribute to platform homepage and user-facing documentation.
• Define and maintain clear Tier 1 scope boundaries and escalation criteria.
• Pair with senior engineers to build technical depth in Kubernetes, AWS, CI/CD pipelines, and SRE practices during lower-volume periods.
• Support documentation efforts for platform User and Admin guides.
• Accommodate East Coast user/application team needs in a distributed remote environment.

Note: Responsibilities are not exhaustive and may evolve with organizational needs. Adaptability and willingness to take on new tasks are key.

Travel Expectations

None

Minimum Experience and Qualifications

• Experience in an IT help desk, system administration, or IT operations role.
• Familiarity with ticketing systems (e.g., JIRA Service Management).
• Experience with macOS, Windows, or Linux administration.
• Basic understanding of cloud environments (AWS preferred) and a strong willingness to learn Kubernetes, containerized applications, and CI/CD pipelines.
• U.S. citizenship required; eligibility for CUI access.
• Ability to meet IAT Level II certification requirements within a defined timeline, or already possess IAT II–III certification.
• Ability to collaborate effectively in a remote, asynchronous environment.
• Strong triage instincts and the ability to assess, categorize, and route issues efficiently.
• Proactive mindset with a willingness to build processes and documentation from the ground up.

Preferred Experience and Qualifications

• Defense contractor or government IT experience.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes, AWS, or containerized application environments.
• Experience supporting CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Jenkins).
• Familiarity with NIST SP 800-171, NIST SP 800-53, or CMMC 2.0 framework.
• Experience supporting or administering SIEM platforms, MDM solutions, or similar security tooling.
• IAT Level II or III certification already obtained.
• Experience writing technical documentation, runbooks, or standard operating procedures.

Compensation

$102,000—$138,000 USD (based on candidate experience)

Location

Remote - USA

About Defense Unicorns

Defense Unicorns delivers mission value by streamlining software delivery, enabling customers to focus on critical challenges. They foster a vision of freedom and security for progress and innovation, prioritizing speed, user experience, and optionality without compromising security. The team comprises innovators, software engineers, and veterans with extensive experience in the federal market.

What Defense Unicorns Does

They create and deliver secure solutions for continuous software integration and delivery, consolidating best practices for security pipelines, testing, and deployment automation to meet high security requirements. Their solutions are designed to be agnostic, promoting a robust ecosystem of secure, cloud-native software for easier integration.

Who Defense Unicorns Serves

Their customers are mission-focused leaders across public and private enterprises, including defense and civil agencies within the U.S. government. They collaborate with creators of leading-edge software solutions to enhance security and usability.

Technologies We Work On

• Kubernetes
• Cloud Environments (AWS/GCP and Azure)
• Infrastructure-as-code (Terraform/Pulumi)
• Continuous Delivery and automation tooling
• GitOps
• Containers
• CNCF projects and open-source products
• Helm/Kustomize
• Value Stream Mapping
• Security Delivery Improvement
• Kubernetes and cloud-native application development

Benefits

Health:

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

Financial:

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

Leave:

• Flexible Time Off (FTO) plus Federal Holidays, Thanksgiving week, and Christmas/New Year's break
• Paid Parental Leave

Learning:

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

Defense Unicorns is committed to diversity and encourages candidates who are enthusiastic about the role but may not meet every single qualification to apply.