Role Overview
The Growth Director is responsible for developing and executing the company's business development and government engagement strategy within the U.S. Department of War ecosystem. The role focuses on building and managing relationships across military operators, acquisition offices, congressional stakeholders, contracting channels, and other influential actors who shape defense programs.
This position requires translating evolving product development realities into credible external narratives while ensuring external stakeholders do not inadvertently slow internal engineering progress. The Growth Director must navigate the realities of defense acquisition while identifying paths that allow a startup organization to move faster than the traditional system typically permits.
Required Qualifications
- Demonstrated experience coordinating and driving complex efforts that involve multiple organizations, stakeholders, or teams, including situations where formal authority over those groups is limited.
- Working understanding of the Department of War acquisition environment, including practical experience navigating program offices, contracting pathways, and related bureaucratic processes.
- Evidence of successfully accelerating progress through or around slow acquisition structures while maintaining credibility with government stakeholders.
- An established professional network within at least one U.S. military service branch.
- Ability to engage senior decision makers across operational, acquisition, and policy communities and translate their priorities into actionable company strategy.
Preferred Qualifications
- Prior experience as a military operator, particularly within Special Operations Forces or other operational units closely tied to capability development.
- Direct experience working for or with a defense technology startup entering the Department of War market.
- Firsthand experience selling or fielding new capabilities into the defense ecosystem as a non-traditional supplier.
Reporting Structure and Scope
This role reports to the Founder and CEO and is based onsite in San Diego. The position begins as an individual contributor with no direct reports, though the role will manage external consultants, advisors, and subcontracted support as needed.
The Growth Director owns the prioritization and execution approach for government engagement and business development activities. This includes shaping how the company engages with military operators, program offices, congressional stakeholders, and other influential actors.
The role requires close coordination with engineering leadership to maintain alignment between technical development timelines and external expectations. A core responsibility is protecting the internal development process from unnecessary bureaucratic friction while ensuring that key stakeholders remain informed and appropriately engaged.
Success in the role requires strong personal agency, accountability for outcomes, and the judgment to escalate issues through senior chains of command when necessary in order to resolve blocking constraints or misaligned requirements.
