Software Engineer
Kestrel Intelligence
About the role
The Mission
At Kestrel, we are building the future of scalable autonomy across domains. Our systems enable commercial and national security customers to sense and act in support of complex missions without significant autonomous system expertise. This technology bridges domains (e.g., space, air, land, sea) and fields (e.g., AI, orbital dynamics, geospatial), requiring a team that has both breadth and depth in these related topics.
The Role
As a Kestrel Software Engineer, you will lead the development of CI/CD artifacts, data structures, data processing pipelines, components of an agentic AI architecture, and user interface components. You will work at the bleeding edge of geospatial science. This role requires adaptability, engineering rigor, and a deep respect for the mission.
Core Responsibilities:
- Design and deploy our infrastructure using Terraform
- Lead the deployment of Python-based APIs to cloud environments
- Experience with large-scale infrastructure architecture
- Establish infrastructure best practices from the ground up, including: Environment separation (dev / staging / prod); Secure networking, IAM, and secrets management; Logging, monitoring, and alerting
Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions
- Apply prior AWS GovCloud and DoD IL experience to ensure: Compliance-ready infrastructure; Architecture choices that will not block future government deployments
- Design infrastructure and deployment patterns that support multi-cloud environments, including: Cloud-agnostic Terraform module design where practical; Minimizing provider lock-in for core services; Supporting future deployments across commercial cloud and GovCloud environments
- Plan and advise on future AWS GovCloud and DoD IL deployments, even if those environments are not immediately live
- Identify and mitigate infrastructure and compliance risks early
Bonus:
- Strong software engineering background is a plus, particularly: API development; Distributed or service-oriented systems; Prior experience designing or operating multi-cloud environments is a plus
- Based near the Colorado Springs, CO or Washington, DC (working in customer sites in Crystal City, VA and Herndon, VA) areas
- Active Top Secret // Specially Compartmented Information (TS//SCI) clearance with counterintelligence-scope polygraph (CSP) or full-scope polygraph (FSP)
Must be a US Citizen
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Responsibilities
- Design and deploy cloud infrastructure using Terraform.
- Deploy Python APIs and develop infrastructure patterns for commercial cloud and future GovCloud environments.
- Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions.
- Establish infrastructure practices for environment separation, secure networking, identity and access management, secrets, monitoring, and alerting.
- Plan for multi-cloud deployments and minimize provider lock-in where practical.
- Identify and mitigate infrastructure and compliance risks.
Qualifications
- Strong software engineering background, with API development and distributed or service-oriented systems experience preferred.
- Experience with large-scale infrastructure architecture and cloud deployments.
- U.S. citizenship required.
- Experience with AWS GovCloud and DoD Impact Level environments is valuable.
- Active TS/SCI clearance with a counterintelligence-scope or full-scope polygraph is a bonus.
- Being near Colorado Springs, CO, or the Washington, DC area is a bonus.
Skills mentioned
About Kestrel Intelligence
Kestrel is transforming autonomy with an Agentic AI-driven system built for end users, connecting to 3,500+ autonomous global sensors in space, the air, on land, and at sea to identify and solve problems. Kestrel's software helps lower the barrier to entry for potential autonomy users, and helps customers save costs, improve autonomous efficiency, and realize unique business or operational value in use cases such as continuous agricultural yield improvement, automated industrial asset monitoring, or smart disaster response. Kestrel automates the allocation, prioritization, and coordination of ISR collection across vendors, ensuring timely, relevant, and high-veracity intelligence at scale. Our platform combines AI-driven tasking agents, dynamic marketplace principles, and multi-sensor integration, making geospatial intelligence collection as seamless as calling a ride. Built for national security, commercial enterprises, and critical infrastructure operators, Kestrel empowers decision-makers with on-demand, automated ISR collection—ensuring intelligence is actionable, not just collected. Visit www.kestrelintelligence.com to learn more.