Mission Director - Space

The role

The Mission Director is a quota-carrying business owner responsible for identifying, shaping, closing, and executing new business within the Space Force. You will build relationships with customers, lead opportunities from discovery to contract award, and remain accountable for contract execution including cost, schedule, and performance.

What you will do

• 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.
• Define customer problems, scope, and desired outcomes to shape solutions.
• Lead opportunities through proposal, negotiation, and contract award.
• Serve as the program leader for new contracts with responsibility for execution.
• Manage delivery risks, scope changes, and mission outcomes.
• Define and build the team required to execute each contract.
• Lead program managers and delivery leaders as the portfolio grows.
• Maintain an active pipeline and identify follow-on work, expansions, and adjacent opportunities.
• Own customer retention, portfolio growth, and gross margin.

Required qualifications

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

Nice to have

• 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.
• 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.
• Candidates located near Space Force customer and acquisition hubs, particularly Los Angeles or Huntsville.

Benefits

• Medical/Dental/Vision
• Premiums are 100% Company Paid
• Health Savings Account
• Life Insurance
• Disability Insurance
• 401k Retirement Plan
• Company Stock Options
• Home Office Budget
• Flexible Time Off (FTO)
• All Federal Holidays
• One week for Thanksgiving
• Two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s

About the company

Defense Unicorns delivers mission value by streamlining software delivery so customers can focus on the most important challenges. The team is composed of innovators, software engineers, and veterans with decades of experience delivering technology programs across the federal market.