Analyst - Defense Acquisition

Obviant•Arlington, VA

About The Position

Obviant is building a data source of truth and AI tools for defense acquisition by combining information from thousands of structured and unstructured sources. The Defense Acquisition Data Analyst ensures the data behind the product is accurate and reflects how acquisition professionals understand programs, budgets, contracts, and milestones. The analyst bridges subject-matter experts with engineers and managers who develop data models, pipelines, and products. The role calls for deep defense acquisition expertise and a strong understanding of the data systems that record acquisition activity, including their contents, omissions, limitations, and reliability. The analyst advises product and engineering teams, evaluates AI-generated responses, documents source knowledge, and helps customers understand the origins and caveats of the data. The position supports product improvements by translating acquisition workflows and user questions into clear requirements.

Requirements

At least 6 years of experience in defense acquisition, budgeting, or contracting, such as in a program office, comptroller or financial management role, contracting, or PPBE, as a government employee or contractor supporting those functions.
Complete working knowledge of the defense acquisition system, including requirements (e.g., JCIDS), funding (e.g., PPBE), and management (e.g., DAS).
Fluency in budget concepts, including appropriations and colors of money, program elements and budget line items, justification exhibits (R-1, P-1, J-books), and movement of funds from request to obligation.
Understanding of contracting vehicles, contract types, and how awards and modifications are made and reported.
Deep familiarity with DoW data systems of record related to acquisition, budget, contracts, or related domains, including their contents, omissions, reporting lags, and conflicts.
Strong analytical skills and comfort working hands-on with large, messy datasets in Excel or similar tools.
Ability to explain complex concepts plainly to engineers, customers, and executives.
Comfort with ambiguity and incomplete data, including the ability to judge what is and is not good enough.
Strong written communication skills and ability to document knowledge for others.

Nice To Haves

DAWIA / DAU certification in Program Management, Contracting, or Business – Financial Management.
Experience at DoD/DoW, a military service, DIU, or a defense-focused consultancy or FFRDC.
Familiarity with LLMs, retrieval, or evaluating AI-generated answers.
Experience querying data with SQL or Python.
Active security clearance.

Responsibilities

Understand what each defense data source contains and omits, including how and when data is reported.
Explain data limitations such as reporting lags, coverage gaps, omitted or restricted data, inconsistent identifiers, and disagreements among official sources.
Connect budget requests to funded programs, executing contracts, and managing organizations, and identify where those relationships break down.
Identify data and analytical results that are technically valid but inconsistent with acquisition, budgeting, or contracting practices.
Advise product and engineering teams on how sources should be interpreted and presented.
Write test questions and review model-generated answers to ensure AI features provide decision-grade results for acquisition professionals.
Join customer conversations, explain data sources and caveats, and help government and industry users trust the product.
Capture and encode subject-matter expertise to improve Obviant's systems.
Document core data sources, their contents, omissions, and known limitations for use by the team.
Turn acquisition workflows and user questions into clear product requirements.