Job Overview:
We’re looking for an engineering leader who stays close to the code, holds a high technical bar, and can translate product priorities into shipped software without losing momentum. You’ll manage a team of software engineers, collaborate directly with product management on roadmap execution, and operate as a peer to architecture and platform peers across Exostar’s R&D organization.
You will use AI coding tools — Claude Code, GitHub Copilot — yourself, daily. You will model that behavior for your team. AI-native development is not optional at Exostar; it’s how we build.
This role reports to the Director, R&D Engineering and operates in Exostar’s FedRAMP Moderate / CMMC Level 2 environment serving defense primes including Boeing and BAE Systems.
What You’ll Own
Engineering Delivery
- Lead a team of software engineers building production features across Exostar’s identity, credentialing, and supply chain security platform.
- Own the technical quality of your team’s output — architecture decisions, PR reviews, code quality, and production reliability.
- Drive sprint execution: planning, backlog refinement, dependency management, and delivery against committed milestones.
- Identify and resolve blockers before they become delays — escalate when needed but own the outcome.
- Establish and maintain engineering metrics: deployment frequency, change failure rate, cycle time, defect escape rate.
AI-Native Engineering Leadership
- Use Claude Code and GitHub Copilot daily in your own workflow — not as optional productivity tools, as standard practice.
- Model AI-native development for your team: code generation, agentic workflows, AI-assisted PR review, and automated testing.
- Drive adoption across your team: coach skeptics, celebrate early adopters, measure impact, and share learnings org-wide.
- Stay current on the AI tooling landscape — surface new tools and workflows to the Director when they’re worth evaluating.
Product & Roadmap Collaboration
- Partner with product managers to translate roadmap priorities into engineering scope — push back on ambiguity, not on accountability.
- Participate in quarterly planning: capacity estimation, sequencing, and dependency identification across teams.
- Maintain clear line of sight from customer commitments to sprint execution for your team.
- Surface engineering constraints to product early — don’t absorb scope silently, negotiate it explicitly.
People Leadership
- Build and sustain a strong engineering team by hiring well, developing talent, addressing performance gaps, and making tough decisions when required.
- Lead consistent 1:1 conversation that prioritize coaching, development, and long-term impact.
- Build a team culture of end-to-end ownership: engineers who ship, monitor, and stand behind their systems in production.
- Partner with the Director on career development frameworks and internal promotion pipelines.
Responsibilities-Your day if you join us:
Required:
Location: Hybrid- Herndon, VA, Cincinnati, OH (3x/week)
Preferred Qualifications:
You are exactly who we are looking for if you:
- Experience in a FedRAMP, CMMC, HIPAA, or equivalent regulated environment — understanding of how compliance requirements land in the SDLC.
- Azure depth: Entra ID, managed identities, Azure DevOps, Azure Gov familiarity.
- Exostar’s primary stack: C#/.NET, Angular, Python, TypeScript, Kubernetes, Terraform.
- IAM, PKI, credentialing, or federated identity domain experience.
- Experience building or operating agentic AI workflows: MCP, multi-tool pipelines, AI-assisted code review or testing.
- Track record of driving AI tooling adoption at team scale — teach-the-trainer models, adoption measurement, coaching skeptics.
- Deep understanding Microsoft Azure PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) offerings such as App Service, Functions, and Azure SQL.
- Hands-on, working knowledge of Java and the Spring framework is required.
Why Exostar
- AI-native engineering org: Claude Code and Copilot are standard, not experiments. Leadership actively backs it and uses it.
- Real compliance stakes: FedRAMP Moderate, CMMC 110/110, Azure Gov multi-tenant. Engineering decisions matter here.
- PE-backed (Arlington Capital Partners) with the resources to invest and the urgency to execute.
- Direct line to a Director who is hands-on, technically credible, and invested in your development.
- Mission-driven: securing collaboration infrastructure for the Defense Industrial Base.
About Exostar
Exostar’s cloud-based platforms create exclusive communities within the Aerospace and Defense, Life Sciences, and other highly regulated industries where members securely collaborate, share information, and operate compliantly. Within these communities we build trust. By analyzing community data, we provide insights and intelligence enabling organizations to make better, timelier decisions, mitigate risk, and operate more efficiently.
- We believe in employee development: we promote internally and provide training and educational assistance.
- We provide a fun, engaged workplace, with social and community-building events.
- We offer comprehensive benefits and flexible time off plans.
Exostar is an Equal Opportunity Employment Employer. The company provides equal employment opportunities to all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, disability status or genetic information. Exostar is committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all persons in all facets of employment including recruiting, hiring, compensation, promotion, training, benefits, transfers and working conditions.
The pay range for this position is $150,000k - $170,000k/yr; however, the final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, skills, qualifications, and location. Exostar also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance, EAP, Flexible Spending Accounts, 401(k) matching, flexible time off and sick leave.