Founding GTM Lead

Schemata • Washington, DC

3d

About The Position

Schemata is hiring its first dedicated go-to-market employee to build and own pipeline creation from end to end. The role combines outbound prospecting and follow-up, ideal customer profile and messaging refinement, and the development of account signals, tools, and reporting. About half the role is focused on outbound and follow-up, with the remainder split between ICP and messaging work and signals, tools, and reporting. Success is measured by pipeline created rather than message volume, with an emphasis on thoughtful, account-specific outreach to a limited number of buyers in federal and commercial markets.

The role initially supports Schemata's commercial push, working with the VP of Business Development and, as the team grows, commercial Deployment Strategists. It also supports federal Deployment Strategists. The GTM Lead books and prepares meetings; the VP of Business Development and Deployment Strategists run discovery and carry deals through closing. This is an individual-contributor role with a potential path to leading go-to-market as the team expands.

The person will build and maintain target-account lists, research account structures and buying roles, write and execute tailored outreach, qualify and follow up with prospects, and book meetings. They will run tests on segments and messaging, maintain current ICPs and personas, develop approved-content-based sales materials, and track competitors. They will also automate account-signal tracking, manage a lean outbound and AI-tool stack, keep the CRM current, and report weekly on activity, meetings, opportunities, and sourced pipeline.

In the first 90 days, the hire is expected to learn the product, customers, pipeline, and prior campaigns; take over and audit the outbound setup and CRM; research initial target accounts and book meetings; establish tiered federal and commercial target lists and signal-driven outreach; launch and report on tests; contribute to at least one sourced opportunity; and document a repeatable playbook.

Requirements

• Three to six years of experience in outbound-heavy roles such as SDR or BDR, growth, demand generation, GTM engineering, or product marketing.
• At least one role in which the candidate personally built prospect lists and wrote outreach copy.
• A record of running audience or messaging experiments and changing course based on results.
• Excellent, plain-spoken writing; writing will be evaluated.
• Strong research instincts and ability to learn unfamiliar industries or military organizations quickly and identify the person who owns the problem.
• Fluency with modern outbound and AI tools, including the ability to build enrichment and signal workflows and simple automations, and understanding of email deliverability.
• Comfort with spreadsheets and basic analysis, honesty about results, and willingness to stop ineffective work.
• Comfort with ambiguity and startup pace, and ability to set priorities independently.
• Must be a U.S. person.

Nice To Haves

• Background in heavy industry, such as aviation, industrial maintenance, MRO, energy, manufacturing, or maritime.
• Product marketing experience in positioning, messaging frameworks, or sales enablement content.
• Experience with design tools such as Canva for building collateral.
• Experience as an early go-to-market hire, ideally at a company with fewer than 50 people, where the candidate built the process they inherited.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain a focused, tiered target-account list across federal units and program offices and commercial asset owners and OEMs.
• Map priority accounts to identify relevant sub-organizations, people experiencing the problem, budget owners, and recent changes.
• Write and run tailored outreach through LinkedIn, email, and phone.
• Respond quickly to replies and inbound leads; qualify, nurture, disqualify, and book meetings for Deployment Strategists and the VP of Business Development.
• Own follow-up discipline for interested prospects who have not booked a meeting.
• Build pipeline around conferences and industry events by booking meetings in advance and following up promptly afterward.
• Run experiments on segments and messaging, analyze results, and recommend next steps.
• Keep ideal customer profiles and personas current using evidence from replies, discovery calls, wins, and losses.
• Use market learnings to improve messaging and recommend narrative changes, bringing evidence to the VP of Business Development, who owns the final narrative.
• Create outbound-adjacent materials from approved content, including one-pagers, short case studies, landing-page copy, and account-specific leave-behinds, using only supportable claims.
• Maintain a working view of competitors and assess where Schemata's positioning succeeds or struggles.
• Build and automate weekly tracking of account-readiness signals across priority federal and commercial accounts, including awards and budget lines, leadership changes, facility expansions, new equipment, technician hiring surges, and public statements about workforce or readiness problems.
• Operate and recommend changes to a lean outbound technology stack, including AI research and drafting tools, contact enrichment, sequencing, and useful automations.
• Keep the Notion CRM current so every active account and contact has an owner and a logged next step.
• Report weekly on accounts worked, conversations started, meetings booked and held, opportunities created, and pipeline sourced, explaining what results indicate and whether tests failed because of the audience or message.
• Learn the product, customers, current pipeline, and past campaigns; take over the starter outbound setup; audit tools and CRM; prepare briefs on initial target accounts; and book initial meetings.
• Establish tiered commercial and federal target lists, launch signal-driven outreach and hypothesis-based tests, maintain a regular meeting cadence, source opportunities, report test recommendations, and document a repeatable playbook.

Benefits

• Meaningful equity stake in a high-growth, venture-backed defense technology startup.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Competitive salary reflecting experience and track record.
• 401(k) plan.
• Paid parental leave.
• High visibility and real impact, collaborating with engineers and researchers in a high-ownership environment.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed