Director, Strategic Programs

Company: Early-Stage Defense Tech Software
Location: Washington, DC / Northern Virginia. In person, Rosslyn office.
Role Type: Full-Time Employee
Reports To: Head of Growth, or the CEO directly depending on experience
Travel: Up to 25%
Clearance: Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance

About the Client

We're on a mission to ensure warfighters are prepared for every challenge they face. We are committed to assembling a world-class team of exceptional problem solvers, combining expert engineering talent with deep experience in National Security.

We build AI for the most important problem in defense: making sure the force is ready to fight. Our software is deployed and in use with DoD partners today. The office is in Rosslyn.

About the Role

We're looking for someone to turn our wins into programs that last. Early traction in defense is fragile: pilots end, Phase IIs expire, and good software falls into the valley of death because nobody built the transition path.

This role owns that path. You'll take existing customers and contracts and convert them into budgeted, recurring, defensible program lines, working the POM cycle, transition agreements, and the program office relationships that make us permanent.

Responsibilities

• Transition Ownership. Own Phase II to Phase III transitions and pilot to program conversions. Build the sponsor, requirement, and funding case for each one and drive it to a signed vehicle.
• Program Insertion. Map our capability against programs of record and identify where it belongs. Build relationships with PEOs, PMs, and requirements owners to get it there.
• Funding Strategy. Work the budget cycle. Track POM inputs, unfunded requirements lists, congressional adds, APFIT, and reprogramming actions, and position us against real money on a real timeline.
• Account Expansion. Grow existing accounts. Keep current customers on contract, expand scope and option years, and turn one user into an enterprise footprint.
• Teaming and Partnerships. Build relationships with primes, integrators, FFRDCs, and UARCs where a teaming path is faster than a direct one.

Requirements

• Direct experience moving a technology from prototype or SBIR into a funded program of record, and the ability to walk through how it actually happened.