Director, Strategic Programs

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.
• Deep working knowledge of PPBE, the POM cycle, and how requirements and money move inside DoD.
• Relationships with program offices, PEOs, or acquisition leadership that you can bring to bear.
• A background in defense technology, at a company that has had real program success. Experience across multiple services is ideal; depth in one service, Army, Air Force, Navy, or Space Force, with the comfort to flex into the others, works too.
• Patience for long cycles paired with the discipline to show measurable progress every quarter.
• Strong writing skills. Much of this job is white papers, transition plans, and unsolicited proposals that have to be good.
• Based in Washington, DC or Northern Virginia, in person, and willing to travel up to 25%.
• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.

Preferred

• Time inside a program office, PEO, or service acquisition organization.
• Experience with APFIT, Joint Staff or CCMD requirements processes, or CFT engagement.
• Familiarity with AI/ML, modeling and simulation, or training and readiness portfolios.
• Experience at an early-stage defense tech or govtech company.
• Active security clearance.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and equity to share in our success
• The chance to join a founding team and directly shape the future of the company
• The opportunity to work with cutting-edge AI technology in a defense context
• Full health and dental benefits, 401(k), commuting benefits, lunch when in office
• Office in Washington, DC / Northern Virginia