Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Mattermost is the leading collaborative workflow platform for defense, intelligence, security, and critical infrastructure. They are seeking a US Defense Software Engineering Lead to lead a small, agile development team dedicated to building mission-critical capabilities for US national security customers.
Responsibilities
- Work remotely and autonomously within a distributed, global team — you'll own your work and stay closely connected across time zones
- 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
Skills
- 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 (e.g., React) and backend (e.g., 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
- Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance
- Active Secret clearance preferred; TS/SCI is a plus
- 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
Benefits
- Work remotely and autonomously within a distributed, global team
- Travel 1-2 weeks per quarter
- Mattermost takes a market-based approach to pay and pay may vary depending on your location
- The successful candidate's starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions
Company Overview
Mattermost is an open source platform for secure collaboration across the entire software development lifecycle. It was founded in 2016, and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA, with a workforce of 51-200 employees. Its website is https://mattermost.com.