Mission Director - Space

Defense Unicorns; Huntsville (AL); On-site; USD 145,000 - 185,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health premiums paid

Health Savings Account

Life Insurance

Disability Insurance

401k retirement plan

Company stock options

Home office budget

Flexible time off

Job summary

Defense Unicorns is seeking a Mission Director to own end-to-end opportunities with the Space Force, driving from discovery to contract award and ongoing lifecycle management. You will manage a portfolio, lead cross-functional teams, and ensure achievement of revenue and margin targets while navigating defense procurement processes.

Ideal candidates will bring Space Force domain knowledge, proven leadership, and the ability to operate across BD, contracting, staffing, and execution.

Qualifications

• Experience within Space Force or closely related defense environment.
• Strong understanding of domain, stakeholders, and terminology.
• Experience in government programs, acquisition, or defense leadership.

Responsibilities

• Own a quota and grow a diversified portfolio of business.
• Shape opportunities and lead through proposal, negotiation, and award.
• Lead contract execution and oversee delivery risk, scope changes, and outcomes.
• Build and lead the team to scale contract execution and portfolio.
• Grow the portfolio with follow-on work and retention strategies.

Skills

Space Force experience

Contract negotiations

Program management

Leadership

Revenue ownership

Cloud-native technologies

Kubernetes

Tools

Kubernetes

AWS

Azure

GCP

DevOps tooling

Job description

This position offers a base salary of $145,000 - $185,000.(Total on-target earnings of $290,000 to $370,000)

Role Description:

The Mission Director is a quota-carrying, full-lifecycle business owner responsible for identifying, shaping, closing, and executing new business within the Space Force, with a focus on Space Systems Command (SSC).

You will build trusted relationships with Mission Heroes (our customers), identify meaningful problems, shape solutions using Defense Unicorns products, and lead opportunities from initial discovery through contract award. Once awarded, you will remain accountable for the contract throughout its lifecycle, including cost, schedule, performance, staffing, margin, and customer satisfaction.

This role is designed for someone who wants broad ownership. As the portfolio grows in size and complexity, you will increasingly lead through program managers and delivery leaders while retaining accountability for portfolio outcomes.

Responsibilities:

The listed responsibilities are not exhaustive and additional responsibilities may be assigned based on the evolving needs of the organization. We are seeking a dynamic individual who is able to adapt and take on new responsibilities as they arise.

1. Build the Business

• Identify and develop net-new Space Force and build trusted relationships with Mission Heroes and key stakeholders.
• Own a quota and grow a diversified portfolio of business.

2. Shape and Close Opportunities

• Define customer problems, scope, and desired outcomes to shape solutions using Defense Unicorns products and the right acquisition approach.
• Lead opportunities through proposal, negotiation, and contract award.

3. Own Contract Execution

• Serve as the program leader for new contracts you close, with direct responsibility for execution until the portfolio reaches the scale where additional program management support is warranted.
• Manage delivery risks, scope changes, and mission outcomes.

4. Build and Lead the Team

• Define and build the team required to execute each contract. Personally lead contract execution and, as the portfolio grows, lead program managers and other delivery leaders across the portfolio.

5. Grow the Portfolio

• Maintain an active pipeline and continue developing new opportunities while executing existing contracts by identifying follow-on work, expansions, and adjacent opportunities.
• Own customer retention, portfolio growth, and gross margin.
• Grow from individual contract ownership into a broader portfolio leadership role.

Candidates located near Space Force customer and acquisition hubs, particularly Los Angeles or Huntsville, are preferred. These locations are not required; candidates in other locations will be considered.

Ability to travel approximately 25–40%, including regular travel to customer locations, is required.

Preferred Experience and Qualifications:

• Experience within the Space Force, or a closely related defense environment.
• Strong understanding of the culture, mission, stakeholders, and terminology within the domain you support.
• Experience in one or more of the following: military operations, government program management, acquisition, contracting, business development, or defense industry program leadership.
• Working knowledge of federal acquisition, including contract vehicles, acquisition strategies, and contract negotiations.
• Strong commercial judgment and comfort owning revenue-generating activities.
• Demonstrated ability to lead teams and hold accountability for outcomes.
• Willingness to operate across business development, contracting, staffing, and execution, personally driving critical work while building and leading the teams required to scale.
• Comfortable operating with ambiguity, identifying opportunities, and creating a path forward without a predefined playbook.
• Technical fluency sufficient to understand and communicate Defense Unicorns products, cloud-native technologies, DevSecOps, Kubernetes, and modern software delivery concepts.

Who We Are

Defense Unicorns delivers mission value by streamlining software delivery so our customers can focus on the most important challenges. We share a vision of freedom and security for the advancement of progress and innovation. Our commitment to this vision, and to our mission-driven customers, means a commitment to speed, user experience and optionality, without compromising security. Our team is composed of innovators, software engineers, and veterans with decades of experience delivering technology programs across the federal market.

What We Do

We create and deliver secure solutions for continuous software integration and delivery. Defense Unicorns consolidates the best practices for security pipelines, testing, and deployment automation in order to meet the high security requirements valued by mission owners. Our solutions are agnostic by design and we believe that growing a robust ecosystem of secure, cloud-native software solutions can help enterprise customers inside and outside the federal market buy and integrate software more easily.

Who We Serve

Defense Unicorns’ customers are mission-focused leaders across public and private enterprises. We proudly support defense and civil agencies across the U.S. government and we work closely with the creators of leading-edge software solutions to deliver value to the mission-owner by improving the security and consumability of commercial software products.

What We Work On

• Cloud Environments (AWS/GCP and Azure)
• Continuous Delivery and automation tooling
• GitOps
• Containers
• CNCF projects and open source products and packages
• Building and improving security delivery
• Building Kubernetes and cloud native applications

Benefits Our Unicorns Enjoy

Health:

• Premiums are 100% Company Paid
• Health Savings Account
• Life Insurance
• Disability Insurance
• 401k Retirement Plan
• Company Stock Options
• Home Office Budget

Leave:

• We offer all full-time Unicorns Flexible Time Off (FTO) plus all Federal Holidays, one week for Thanksgiving, and two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s

Learning:

• Reimbursement for approved trainings/subscriptions
• Conferences (travel, lodging, and fees)

Don’t have all the preferred experience or qualifications? Studies show that underrepresented groups like women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs if they don't meet every requirement listed.

At Defense Unicorns, we're committed to diversity. If you're enthusiastic about the role but don't match every criteria, we encourage you to apply. You could be the perfect fit for this or another role! Defense Unicorns is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, union status and/or beliefs, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.