Head of Business Development

Lodestar•Los Angeles, CA

7h•Remote

About The Position

The government does not fund what it does not know about. Your job is to make sure Lodestar is in the room and in the requirements before a solicitation ever drops. As Head of Business Development, you will own the pre-solicitation phase of Lodestar's government pipeline. You will build the working-level relationships, shape the requirements, pursue the partnerships, carve out the budgets, and evangelize our technology from a capability the government is aware of into a capability the government is writing requirements around. You think strategically about where the money is going and act tactically every day to make sure Lodestar is positioned to capture it. You will report directly to the VP of Commercial and Federal and operate with significant autonomy. There is no playbook. There is no large team beneath you. There is a real mission, a real need, and a real national security problem to solve.

Requirements

5 to 10 years of business development, capture, or program management experience in the national security space domain.
A real network in the ecosystem. You can name the program analysts and innovation office leads at SSC, AFRL, DIU, Space RCO, or SDA.
Deep knowledge of the pre-solicitation phase. You understand how requirements get written, how contracts get structured, how budgets get negotiated, and where the leverage points are before a formal competition begins.
Technical fluency. You can hold a credible conversation about space domain awareness, RPO, autonomous systems, orbital mechanics, or directed energy without an engineer in the room.
Federal Acquisition literacy. You know the FAR, the PPBE cycle, contracting vehicles, color of money, their mechanics, and their timelines.
Operational discipline. Pipeline hygiene, CRM accuracy, and consistent follow-through are non-negotiable.
Eligibility and willingness to obtain a Secret clearance.

Nice To Haves

Prior experience inside a government innovation organization: SpaceWERX, AFWERX, DIU, NavalX, or equivalent.
Experience at a venture-backed defense tech startup where business development was a founder-level function and relationships were the primary currency.
Specific familiarity with space control, space domain awareness, RPO-D, missile defense, or directed energy mission areas.
Experience negotiating, supporting and submitting for SBIR Phase II transition to Phase III, TACFI and STRATFI.
Active clearance is a plus.

Responsibilities

Shape requirements before they are written. Engage program offices, contracting shops, operational end users, and innovation organizations daily to position Mithril's capabilities into the language of upcoming solicitations, prototypes, and capability statements.
Pursue non-traditional acquisition pathways. Own the development and execution of no-cost CRADAs, OTA consortium memberships, SpaceWERX and DIU topic requests, and prototype budget carve-outs.
Build and own the pipeline. Identify, qualify, and track opportunities across USSF, AFRL, DIU, Space RCO, SDA, NASA, and the IC before they hit SAM.gov. Own the CRM. Deliver a weekly pipeline report.
Own the working-level relationship layer. You own the program analysts, the contracting specialists, and the innovation office staff — the people who write the requirements, draft the PWS/SOW/SOO, and decide who gets access before a formal competition begins.
Represent Lodestar in the ecosystem. Attend industry days, technical forums, classified engagements, and innovation events. Write trip reports after every interaction. Surface intelligence that changes how we compete.
Support the proposal machine. Coordinate teaming partner inputs, manage data calls, track submission deadlines, and ensure the proposal team has what it needs when it needs it.