Defense Unicorns is seeking mission-driven Account Executives to spearhead full-lifecycle capture and business development efforts across the Navy and Marine Corps ecosystem. In this high-impact role, you will shape and lead strategic pursuits that align Defense Unicorns' unique strengths, including secure software delivery, DevSecOps, tactical edge enablement, and cybersecurity, with emerging government needs.
You will own the acquisition of new Mission Heroes (our customers) from early qualification through proposal. This includes driving win strategies, forming key partnerships, maintaining disciplined pipeline hygiene, and aligning technical solutions to mission outcomes. This is a pivotal role within our growth team that directly influences the company's pipeline, revenue targets, and national security impact.
- Drive new Mission Hero acquisition across the Navy and Marine Corps ecosystem, ensuring alignment with Defense Unicorns' strategic growth objectives and solution capabilities.
- Develop and execute capture plans, win strategies, and competitive positioning to secure new business.
- Engage early with government stakeholders, primes, and ecosystem partners to shape opportunities ahead of solicitation.
- Understand customer pain points, acquisition timelines, and funding paths across the DoD, with emphasis on Navy and Marine Corps mission environments.
- Identify and lead teaming arrangements that enhance technical capabilities, socio-economic positioning, or incumbent advantage.
- Translate technical capabilities such as Unified Defense Stack (UDS), cATO acceleration, software delivery, DevSecOps, cybersecurity, tactical edge enablement, and edge deployments into persuasive win themes.
- Support RFI/RFP responses with market intelligence, SWOT analysis, and pricing strategy input.
- Maintain strong CRM discipline and pipeline hygiene, using data-driven insights to prioritize accounts, refine strategies, and improve forecasting.
- Represent the company at industry and government events to raise visibility, build relationships, and gather market intelligence.
You are measured by:
- Number and quality of qualified Navy and Marine Corps opportunities identified and advanced.
- Achievement of annual bookings target and contribution to overall proposal win rate.
- Development and execution of capture strategies, including capture plans, customer shaping, and teaming.
- CRM discipline, pipeline accuracy, and consistent use of data to inform account and opportunity strategy.
Travel Expectations/Requirements: 30%-45%
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.
Required Experience and Qualifications:- Proven ability to win complex technical pursuits through the full capture lifecycle.
- Experience selling into, supporting, or working with Navy and/or Marine Corps mission environments.
- Strong understanding of DoD business development, capture, and acquisition processes, including customer shaping, opportunity qualification, teaming, and proposal support.
- Ability to ramp quickly, operate independently, and manage ambiguity in a fast-moving environment.
- Strong CRM discipline and comfort using pipeline data to prioritize accounts, forecast opportunities, and maintain pipeline hygiene.
- Excellent communication, strategic thinking, and leadership skills across technical, executive, government, and partner audiences.
- Experience coordinating multi-disciplinary teams to deliver successful proposals.
- Eligibility to obtain a U.S. security clearance.
- Background in surface warfare, fleet operations, or air domain mission areas.
- Startup or high-growth technology company experience.
- Working knowledge of Navy acquisition processes, including FAR-based contracts, OTAs, SBIR, IDIQs, and other relevant pathways.
- Familiarity with software factory environments, DevSecOps, cybersecurity, tactical edge deployments, secure software delivery, or compute/software infrastructure.
- Experience translating technical capabilities into mission-aligned value propositions and persuasive win themes.
- Active security clearance.
- Existing relationships across Navy, Marine Corps, primes, or relevant defense technology ecosystems.
This position offers a base salary of $145,000 - $185,000. A substantial component of total compensation is based on highly competitive commission on net new ARR, rewarding exceptional performance.
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 DoWe 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 ServeDefense 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- 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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