Mission Director - Navy (Mission Systems & Aviation)

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

The Mission Director is a quota-carrying, full-lifecycle business owner responsible for identifying, shaping, closing, and executing new business within PAE Mission Systems/ Aviation.

We are seeking Mission Directors across two areas of focus:

• Mission Systems: PAE Mission Systems, NAVWAR, Naval C4ISR, and related Navy mission systems, including shipboard and maritime operational environments.
• Naval Aviation: PAE Aviation, NAVAIR, and Navy and Marine Corps aviation programs and operational environments.

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.

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 can adapt and take on new responsibilities as they arise.

• Identify and develop net-new opportunities within your assigned Navy mission area, building 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 using Defense Unicorns products and the right acquisition approach.
• Lead opportunities through proposal, negotiation, and contract award.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Mission Systems: Candidates must be located in San Diego, CA/ West Coast and willing to travel as needed.

• Naval Aviation: Candidates located near Patuxent River or the Washington, DC metropolitan area are preferred.

• Clearance: Active Secret clearance or higher.
• Travel: Ability to travel approximately 25–40%.

• Experience within at least one of the following Navy mission environments:

  • Mission Systems: NAVWAR, Naval C4ISR, or a closely related defense environment.

  • Naval Aviation: Navy or Marine Corps aviation, NAVAIR, 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.
• Experience with CRM, owning a quota, and forecasting, along with 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 to understand and communicate Defense Unicorns products, cloud-native technologies, DevSecOps, Kubernetes, and modern software delivery concepts.

Candidates should have relevant experience and customer relationships within their respective mission area. Experience across both areas is not required.

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.

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.

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.

• Kubernetes
• Cloud Environments (AWS/GCP and Azure)
• Infrastructure-as-code (like Terraform/Pulumi)
• Continuous Delivery and automation tooling
• GitOps
• Containers
• CNCF projects and open source products and packages
• Helm/Kustomize-Value Stream Mapping
• Building and improving security delivery
• Building Kubernetes and cloud native applications

• Medical/Dental/Vision
• Premiums are 100% Company Paid
• Health Savings Account
• Life Insurance
• Disability Insurance

• 401k Retirement Plan
• Company Stock Options
• Home Office Budget

• 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
• Paid Parental Leave

• 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.

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