Associate Director, Business Development - Army

The role

You will build and convert opportunities across the U.S. Army. This involves managing an Army-focused pipeline, developing stakeholder relationships, and translating operational problems into technical narratives and acquisition strategies.

What you will do

• Build and manage an Army-focused pipeline from opportunity identification through proposal submission and expansion.
• Develop net-new relationships across operational units, program offices, and acquisition communities.
• Research customer structures, decision-makers, mission priorities, and budgets.
• Create stakeholder maps and engagement strategies.
• Translate operational problems into opportunity strategies and technical narratives.
• Scope pilots, demonstrations, exercises, and user evaluations.
• Develop strategies for converting successful pilots into follow-on contracts.
• Develop win strategies covering customer engagement and competitive positioning.
• Own assigned proposals and lead gate reviews and submission readiness.
• Represent Distributed Spectrum during frequent travel and work in secure or classified environments.

Required qualifications

• Five or more years of relevant experience owning outcomes in military, defense, national security, defense technology, operational, technical, or commercial environments.
• Relevant U.S. Army experience or demonstrated success working directly with Army customers.
• Active Top Secret clearance required.

Nice to have

• Experience serving in or directly supporting the U.S. Army, including Infantry, Special Forces, Military Intelligence, Electronic Warfare, Signal, SIGINT, CEMA, tactical communications, or a related o
• Experience as an Army officer, warrant officer, NCO, or senior enlisted leader.
• Two or more years of experience in a startup or growth-stage defense technology company.
• Experience as a deployment strategist, forward-deployed operator, mission success lead, solutions professional, technical program strategist, or technical contributor in a customer-facing role.
• Experience creating customer access where no obvious entry point existed.
• Experience converting pilots, demonstrations, exercises, or experimentation efforts into funded follow-on opportunities.
• Experience building net-new customer relationships and developing account, teaming, proposal, pricing, or subcontractor strategies.
• Familiarity with OTAs, SBIR Phase III, BAAs, STRATFI, TACFI, xTech, DIU, or similar pathways.
• Familiarity with RF sensing, EW, SIGINT, edge AI, tactical data integration, mission systems, or field-deployed sensing technologies.
• Active TS/SCI eligibility or experience in classified customer environments.

Benefits

• Above-market salary
• Early Series A Equity
• Excellent health, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) match - up to 4% of your salary
• Flexible PTO
• Daily office lunches in NYC

Before you apply

• To conform to ITAR, you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from t

About the company

DS creates systems that power the next generation of radio spectrum intelligence. They build their own stack from scratch, including embedding model architectures and custom GPU kernels.