Forward Deployed Mission Strategist, Navy

Sitreps•San Diego, CA

2d•$165,000 - $185,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Forward Deployed Mission Strategist is embedded with Navy users in San Diego, spending most of the week at user sites and working on government networks. The role identifies high-impact operational problems, frames them as hypotheses, and tests solutions in the company’s software. Hands-on work includes configuring AI agent workflows, prompts, databases, reports, and alerts on a classified platform, then refining them with users until they are dependable in live operations. The role also scopes and delivers new capabilities with the engineering team. The strategist commonly leads funded prototypes from initial operator discovery through sprint planning, building and testing on classified systems, demonstrations for program leadership, and planning subsequent work. This is a hands-on, forward-deployed role rather than a typical customer success, solutions, or product position. Problems may be unclear and changing, and configurations may require repeated iteration. The strategist works closely with Mission Leads, who manage customer relationships and the route to a program of record, as well as platform engineers, while independently deciding where to focus.

Requirements

U.S. Person status and an active Secret clearance at minimum.
Live in the San Diego area or be willing to relocate; the role is on site.
Background applying technology to difficult operational challenges as a product manager or engineer, or experience bringing new technology into service in the military.
History of making sense of open-ended problems and forming clear hypotheses when there is no obvious path.
Comfort with hands-on technical work, including repeated prompt revision and troubleshooting configurations.
Genuine interest in agentic AI and applying it to practical problems.
Strong sense of ownership and ability to work independently.
Crisp writing and ability to work comfortably with operators and senior officers.

Nice To Haves

TS/SCI clearance.
Navy background, particularly in ISR, targeting, maritime operations, or unmanned systems.
Experience standing watch or working in an operations center.
Hands-on experience with LLM tools or basic scripting.

Responsibilities

Spend time with sailors and civilians in operations centers, training commands, and fleet exercises to understand their day-to-day work and identify manual effort.
Frame unclear problems as quick experiments that can be evaluated within days, and adjust direction based on results.
Build and refine prompts, AI agent workflows, data stores, reports, and dashboards, and confirm they work for users performing real tasks.
Check new releases on classified systems, identify failures, and provide engineers with clear, repeatable bug reports.
Lead funded prototypes from discovery through closing demonstrations, including sprint plans, government dependencies, and progress updates.
Create rapid demonstrations and concepts to introduce new user groups to the software’s capabilities.
Work with Mission Leads and the business development team on scope, pricing estimates, and subsequent phases of work.