Defense Program Outcome Lead — Deployment Strategist

XYZ Venture Capital; Melbourne (FL); On-site; USD 140,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Istari is seeking a Deployment Strategist to own program outcomes and align engineering and customer goals. You will embed with a team on flagship programs, decide what matters, and determine what each demonstration or test must prove.

You will also carry the Program Manager designation on major federal programs and work with a shared operations team to deliver commitments. You are not the primary builder, but you must command enough technical breadth to earn trust from engineers and customers.

Qualifications

• We hire for judgment, curiosity, and a bias toward action more than for a specific degree or years of experience.
• Domain: program execution inside a large, multi-site defense prime — mission systems with formal design gates and certification demands.
• Experience in defense programs or government contracting is preferred but not required.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end outcome of a program: define success, choose problems to solve, set milestones and what to prove.
• Embed with government and industry customers to understand their mission and constraints, building durable relationships.
• Serve as named Program Manager on major federal programs and communicate through status reports and reviews.
• Set direction for a small Forward Deployed Engineering team and protect their time from non-work tasks.
• Own growth through option years, follow-ons, and expansions derived from delivered outcomes.
• Feed field learnings back into product and engineering to improve the platform for all customers.
• Travel to customer sites and attend events as needed, typically domestically.

Skills

Judgment

Curiosity

Bias toward action

Product sense

Tools

MBSE

Modeling & Simulation

Digital threads

Software development

Agentic design

Job description

Istari is seeking a Deployment Strategist to own program outcomes and align engineering and customer goals. You will embed with a team on flagship programs, decide what matters, and determine what each demonstration or test must prove.

You will also carry the Program Manager designation on major federal programs and work with a shared operations team to deliver commitments. You are not the primary builder, but you must command enough technical breadth to earn trust from engineers and customers.