Mission Director - Space

Defense Unicorns; United States; Remote; USD 145,000 - 185,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Premium health insurance

401k plan with company stock options

Home office budget

Paid time off + federal holidays

Job summary

Defense Unicorns is seeking a Mission Director in the United States to identify, shape, close, and execute new business with the Air Force, focusing on Enterprise Cloud, Nuke & NC3, or AOCs/C2.

The role carries quota-carrying ownership across a growing portfolio, with travel of about 25–40% to customer locations and end-to-end responsibility for contracts from discovery to delivery.

Qualifications

• Experience within Air Force Enterprise Cloud, Nuke & NC3, AOCs/C2, or a closely related defense environment.
• Strong understanding of domain culture, mission, stakeholders, and terminology.

Responsibilities

• Build the Business: identify and develop net-new Space Force and build trusted relationships with Mission Heroes.
• Shape and Close Opportunities: define customer problems and lead opportunities through proposal to contract award.
• Own Contract Execution: lead contract execution with accountability for delivery until scale.
• Build and Lead the Team: define and build teams across contracts and portfolios.
• Grow the Portfolio: maintain pipeline and pursue follow-on and adjacent opportunities.

Skills

Quota ownership

Portfolio growth

Business development

Leadership

Tools

Kubernetes

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 Air Force, focused on Enterprise Cloud, Nuke & NC3, or AOCs/C2.

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, Mission Directors will increasingly lead through program managers and delivery leaders while retaining accountability for portfolio outcomes.

We are hiring Mission Directors for each of the following focus areas/territories:

Air Force (Enterprise Cloud focused)

Air Force (Nuke & NC3 focused)

Air Force (AOCs/C2 focused)

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 Air Force customer and acquisition hubs, particularly Boston, Dayton, Denver or the NCR, 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 Air Force Enterprise Cloud, Nuke & NC3, AOCs/C2, 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.

Note: this position requires U.S. Citizenship.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

As set forth in Defense Unicorns’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.