Director of Mission Operations – Unmanned Systems

UFORCE•Virginia Beach, VA

About The Position

UFORCE is a defence-technology company founded in Ukraine and headquartered in London, with operations across Europe, the United States and Asia. It builds uncrewed vessels, ground robotics and aircraft, autonomy software, and a command-and-control layer. Its product lines include the MAGURA family of uncrewed surface vessels, the NEMESIS family of strike platforms, the LIUT family of ground robotic platforms, and counter-UAS systems. The Director of Mission Operations will build and lead the team delivering UFORCE’s uncrewed systems missions and own the operational portfolio across the customer lifecycle, including pre-sale demonstrations, events and exercises, post-sale deployments, and customer implementations. The role reports to the VP of Delivery and leads and develops Mission Managers, establishes standards and decision-making practices for safe, repeatable execution, and ensures concurrent missions have the people, equipment and support they need. The role works closely with the Director of Training, who provides training personnel, pilots and field deployment engineers, and the Director of Operations, who supplies equipment, products and logistics. It is a hands-on leadership position, with deployment expected for first-of-kind, high-risk or high-visibility missions and to coach or assess the team, while building an operation that can succeed through capable mission leaders.

Requirements

Experience leading a deployed operations function or multiple concurrent field teams, with responsibility for planning, prioritization, resourcing and execution.
A track record of hiring, developing and managing mission leaders or comparable field-operations leaders.
Experience building or operating a risk-management and decision-authority framework, including readiness reviews, escalation and go/no-go decisions within defined authority.
Strong mission-planning and operational judgment, including the ability to assess complex plans, challenge assumptions, and balance customer objectives against capacity and risk.
Sufficient understanding of uncrewed systems, payloads and supporting equipment to assess operational feasibility and work effectively with technical specialists.
Experience establishing practical operating standards, templates, checklists and reporting processes across teams.
Clear, candid communication with senior customers and internal leaders, especially when explaining limitations, incidents or difficult trade-offs.
Strong cross-functional leadership and commitment to safety, disciplined compliance and evidence-based reporting.
Willingness and ability to travel regularly and deploy when needed.

Nice To Haves

Experience in uncrewed systems, military operational command, maritime or aviation operations leadership, test range operations or a comparable field environment.
Experience supporting both pre-sale demonstrations and post-sale customer deployments or implementations.
Familiarity with aviation, maritime, range or host-nation operating requirements, and experience coordinating with relevant specialists and authorities.
Operator credentials, maritime or aviation qualifications, or test and evaluation experience relevant to the mission portfolio.
Experience turning field evidence and after-action reviews into improvements in product, training and operational performance.

Responsibilities

Own the mission portfolio across demonstrations, exercises, deployments and customer implementations, maintaining visibility of upcoming work, mission ownership, staffing, assets, readiness and risk.
Review new opportunities for operational feasibility, capacity and risk before commitments are made; resolve competing demands or recommend trade-offs to leadership.
Lead, hire and develop Mission Managers; set expectations, establish qualification and feedback processes, provide backup coverage, and manage deployment tempo and fatigue.
Set and maintain practical mission standards, including planning templates, risk assessments, readiness reviews, briefs, communications plans and closeout reports; assess and improve them based on field learning.
Establish decision and escalation boundaries with leadership and technical and safety owners, and support a culture where concerns can be raised and missions paused or stopped.
Work with the Director of Training to secure qualified personnel and with the Director of Operations to secure platforms, equipment, logistics and support; set requirements and lead assigned personnel during mission execution.
Coordinate with specialists and authorities to address aviation, maritime, range, customer, host-nation and export-control requirements before deployment, and maintain disciplined handling of customer and controlled information.
Serve as a senior operational counterpart to key customers, clearly communicating objectives, readiness, risks, results and limitations, and escalating issues early with options and recommendations.
Use after-action reviews, field data and customer feedback to improve operations, training and products; partner with engineering and product teams to prioritize evidence-backed findings within technical approval boundaries.
Build a regular portfolio review covering mission outcomes, readiness, incidents, corrective actions and team capacity.
Deploy when needed for first-of-kind, high-risk or high-visibility missions, or to coach and assess the team.