Director of Business Development & Strategic Partnerships

Valstad•Austin, TX

1d•$150,000 - $185,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Valstad is rebuilding how ships are made by developing robotic production systems that can turn engineering data directly into finished steel structures, dramatically reducing the time and manual programming required to build ships. Their first platform combines industrial robots, automated material handling, welding, sensing, and AI-driven manufacturing software to produce large ship panels and structural assemblies. The company aims to deploy Valstad technology into partner shipyards and manufacturing facilities, with a broader mission to create the manufacturing technology required to restore and radically expand American shipbuilding capacity. The Role: Valstad is seeking a Director of Business Development & Strategic Partnerships to build the commercial relationships that turn their technology into scaled production programs. This role involves working directly with shipyards, vessel owners, naval architects, defense companies, autonomous-vessel developers, prime contractors, government stakeholders, and other industrial partners. The individual will identify where Valstad can create immediate operational value, structure initial engagements, guide opportunities through technical and commercial evaluation, and convert successful projects into repeat production relationships. This is not a conventional software-sales role; Valstad sells physical manufacturing capacity, advanced production capability, and, over time, robotic manufacturing systems. Opportunities may involve customer-supplied steel, engineering data, qualification requirements, production schedules, freight constraints, inspection standards, facility integration, and complex commercial relationships. The ideal candidate will combine commercial judgment with technical and manufacturing fluency to earn credibility with shipyard executives, program managers, engineers, and production leaders. They should be comfortable originating relationships, developing opportunities from ambiguity, coordinating technical evaluations, negotiating agreements, and staying involved until the promised outcome has been delivered.

Requirements

Seven or more years of experience in business development, strategic partnerships, sales, capture, program development, or a related commercial role.
Demonstrated success developing and closing complex business-to-business or government opportunities.
Experience selling or partnering around physical products, manufacturing capacity, engineering services, industrial technology, or complex systems.
Experience managing opportunities with long sales cycles and multiple technical, operational, and commercial stakeholders.
Ability to conduct detailed customer discovery and identify the actual source of business value.
Ability to translate technical capabilities into clear operational and economic outcomes.
Experience developing proposals, commercial structures, and negotiated agreements.
Strong executive communication and relationship-building skills.
Strong written communication and presentation ability.
Demonstrated judgment about where to invest limited company resources.
Experience maintaining a disciplined pipeline, CRM, and forecast.
Ability to work closely with engineers and manufacturing personnel.
Willingness to travel regularly to customer sites, shipyards, industry events, and partner facilities.
Ability to work primarily on-site in Austin when not traveling.

Nice To Haves

Experience in shipbuilding, maritime, marine construction, or naval programs.
Existing relationships with commercial or defense shipyards.
Experience selling into manufacturing, heavy industry, aerospace, defense, or other complex physical-product environments.
Experience working with vessel owners, naval architects, prime contractors, or government program offices.
Experience selling fabricated structures, contract manufacturing, industrial automation, or production capacity.
Experience developing partnerships between technology companies and established industrial operators.
Experience with Department of Defense acquisition, capture, or contracting.
Experience with FAR-based contracts, OTAs, SBIR/STTR, or other government pathways.
Experience building opportunities before a formal solicitation is issued.
Experience negotiating teaming agreements, pilot agreements, long-term supply agreements, or strategic partnerships.
Experience at an early-stage industrial, robotics, or defense-technology company.
Experience converting technical demonstrations into production contracts.
Experience developing new markets where the customer buying process is not yet standardized.
Technical or engineering background.
Experience in shipyard production, industrial engineering, manufacturing operations, or program management.
Experience working inside a shipyard, prime contractor, or maritime supplier.
Familiarity with structural steel fabrication, welding, modular construction, or industrial robotics.
Familiarity with Navy shipbuilding, commercial-vessel construction, or unmanned maritime systems.
Understanding of manufacturing economics, capacity planning, and capital-equipment decisions.
Experience developing government-funded manufacturing or industrial-base programs.
Experience with defense quality, cybersecurity, export-control, or qualification requirements.
Existing relationships across Gulf Coast, East Coast, or inland shipbuilding markets.
Experience building and managing a business-development, capture, or partnerships team.

Responsibilities

Develop and execute Valstad’s business-development strategy across commercial shipbuilding, defense shipbuilding, autonomous vessels, and adjacent maritime markets.
Identify shipyards, vessel programs, customers, and strategic partners where Valstad can create the greatest near-term value.
Build relationships with senior executives, program managers, engineering leaders, production leaders, supply-chain teams, and government stakeholders.
Develop account plans for priority shipyards, vessel owners, defense primes, and emerging maritime companies.
Originate new opportunities through direct outreach, industry relationships, customer referrals, events, and targeted market development.
Build a qualified pipeline based on actual production requirements, customer urgency, technical fit, and likelihood of award.
Maintain a clear understanding of relevant vessel programs, production schedules, backlog, capacity constraints, and sourcing decisions.
Identify opportunities before they become formal solicitations.
Develop relationships early enough to shape technical requirements, sourcing strategies, and commercial structures.
Determine where Valstad should act as a supplier, manufacturing partner, technology provider, subcontractor, or strategic collaborator.
Avoid spending company resources on opportunities that lack urgency, funding, technical fit, or a credible path to award.
Conduct detailed discovery with customer leadership, engineering, production, quality, and procurement teams.
Understand the customer’s current manufacturing process and identify the actual source of schedule, labor, throughput, or quality constraints.
Identify candidate panels, assemblies, modules, or other structures that fit Valstad’s production capabilities.
Gather information required for technical evaluation, including CAD models, drawings, material specifications, welding requirements, inspection criteria, delivery schedules, and production quantities.
Work with Valstad engineering and manufacturing teams to assess technical feasibility and production readiness.
Distinguish between opportunities that can proceed using existing capabilities and those requiring new engineering, equipment, qualification, or process development.
Quantify the operational and economic value Valstad can provide.
Develop business cases based on schedule improvement, capacity expansion, labor reduction, capital avoidance, throughput, cost, and program-risk reduction.
Understand customer decision processes, budgets, procurement pathways, and internal stakeholders.
Identify the commercial, technical, and organizational conditions required to close each opportunity.
Maintain clear qualification criteria and recommend when opportunities should be advanced, paused, or declined.
Own opportunities from initial engagement through agreement, award, and expansion.
Develop proposals, statements of work, pricing structures, partnership frameworks, and executive presentations.
Structure paid pilots that prove technical and operational value while creating a path to larger production commitments.
Negotiate commercial terms in coordination with Valstad leadership and legal counsel.
Develop deal structures that appropriately account for non-recurring engineering, tooling and fixture development, qualification and testing, customer-supplied versus Valstad-supplied material, production quantities and capacity commitments, delivery schedules, freight and logistics, inspection and acceptance, payment milestones, intellectual property, exclusivity, and warranty and liability.
Establish deposits, progress payments, and other commercial protections appropriate for an early-stage manufacturer.
Structure initial programs so that successful execution naturally expands into repeat production.
Develop long-term supply agreements, capacity reservations, framework agreements, and strategic partnerships where appropriate.
Coordinate closely with finance and operations to ensure proposed pricing and terms reflect actual delivery costs and risk.
Maintain disciplined control over proposal assumptions and commitments.
Ensure Valstad does not make commercial promises that engineering or manufacturing cannot reliably deliver.
Develop partnerships with shipyards that want additional capacity without large upfront capital investments.
Structure relationships that allow Valstad to complement existing shipyard labor and facilities rather than create unnecessary competitive tension.
Identify partnerships involving outsourced panel and structural production, dedicated manufacturing capacity, customer-funded process development, joint qualification, technology deployment, local or regional production, government-supported modernization, and teaming on vessel programs.
Build relationships with naval architects, design firms, classification organizations, defense primes, and maritime suppliers that can increase Valstad’s access to programs.
Develop relationships with steel suppliers, equipment providers, logistics companies, and other organizations that strengthen Valstad’s ability to deliver.
Identify government, state, regional, and industry programs that could support customer adoption or manufacturing expansion.
Lead early discussions regarding deployment of Valstad robotic cells into partner facilities.
Develop partnership models that align incentives and protect Valstad’s technology, economics, and strategic position.
Ensure strategic agreements produce concrete operational or commercial value rather than becoming inactive memoranda of understanding.
Develop Valstad’s pipeline across defense shipbuilding, unmanned maritime systems, and other national-security applications.
Build relationships with defense shipyards, prime contractors, program offices, research organizations, and relevant government stakeholders.
Identify opportunities through prime contractors, shipyard partners, subcontracting relationships, and direct government engagement.
Support capture planning for funded defense opportunities.
Understand applicable acquisition pathways, contracting structures, and budget cycles.
Coordinate responses to requests for information, requests for proposals, white papers, and other government or prime-contractor solicitations.
Work with internal and external experts on proposal development, pricing, compliance, and contracting.
Help identify and pursue opportunities involving SBIR, STTR, OTA, research, industrial-base, or manufacturing-modernization funding.
Maintain awareness of qualification, cybersecurity, export-control, quality, and contracting requirements that may affect an opportunity.
Separate genuine funded demand from general expressions of government interest.
Build a credible path from demonstration or research funding to production revenue.
Develop relationships with inland, commercial, and specialty shipbuilders.
Identify opportunities in barges, workboats, ferries, offshore vessels, autonomous vessels, and other steel maritime structures.
Understand customer requirements for cost, delivery, inspection, classification, and production flexibility.
Position Valstad as a source of flexible manufacturing capacity for yards experiencing backlog, labor constraints, or schedule pressure.
Develop repeatable offerings for common structural products and customer segments.
Identify opportunities where Valstad can produce structures faster or more economically than conventional internal production.
Build partnerships with vessel owners and developers that influence sourcing decisions.
Help customers understand how design choices and data quality affect robotic manufacturability.
Convert successful first articles into recurring production work.
Build and maintain a disciplined CRM process.
Track accounts, opportunities, stakeholders, technical requirements, next actions, risks, estimated value, and expected timing.
Define clear opportunity stages and exit criteria.
Maintain realistic forecasts based on customer evidence rather than optimism.
Conduct regular pipeline reviews with company leadership.
Identify the specific action required to advance each priority opportunity.
Track leading indicators such as qualified customer meetings, technical-data packages received, feasibility assessments completed, paid pilots proposed, proposals submitted, commercial terms agreed, awards received, pilot-to-production conversion, and repeat bookings.
Develop bookings, revenue, and capacity forecasts with finance and operations.
Ensure the commercial pipeline can be translated into credible production and hiring plans.
Build systems that can support a larger business-development and capture organization over time.
Serve as a senior commercial representative of Valstad.
Communicate Valstad’s technical capabilities clearly without exaggerating maturity or performance.
Translate customer needs into actionable internal requirements.
Bring engineering and manufacturing leaders into customer discussions at the right time.
Prepare internal teams before customer meetings and document decisions afterward.
Maintain a clear record of customer commitments, assumptions, and unresolved questions.
Coordinate executive briefings, facility tours, demonstrations, and production reviews.
Communicate setbacks, delivery risks, and technical limitations directly and professionally.
Develop trusted relationships that survive inevitable challenges during new-product introduction.
Help the company develop positioning, sales materials, case studies, and customer references.
Provide structured voice-of-customer input to company strategy, product development, and manufacturing priorities.
Represent Valstad at relevant industry events, conferences, and customer locations.