Manager, Strategic Partnerships

Scout AI•Sunnyvale, CA

About The Position

Scout AI is the frontier AI lab for war. The future of defense will be decided by those who field intelligent machines at scale. At Scout, we’re developing Fury, the first robotic foundation model for defense, to give U.S. forces overwhelming, adaptable, and autonomous power across every domain. Fury enables human operators to command fleets of robots through natural language, and empowers those machines to sense, decide, and act together as one. This mission will ask everything of us: urgency, precision, and relentless work. We hope you’ll join us. We’re hiring a Manager, Strategic Partnerships to identify, pursue, and close integration partnerships with air- and sea-domain robotic platform OEMs from FPV through Group III platforms. You will be the architect of Scout AI’s air- and sea-domain partner ecosystem, mapping every adopted platform currently on contract with the Department of War and positioning Fury as the collaborative autonomy stack that makes those platforms dramatically more lethal, persistent, and intelligent. This is not a traditional partnerships role. This is a deals role. You will hunt, structure, and execute real integration agreements, not sign MOUs for press releases. You’ll negotiate joint development agreements, teaming arrangements, and licensing structures with the companies building the UAS and USV platforms the DoW is fielding today. We build real, in-depth, multi-year deals with tangible responsibilities for both parties, often involving joint R&D, investment, go-to-market coordination, and shared economics. You are a hunter. Once deals are executed, you manage the handoff to engineering for swift transition into operation and move to the next target.

Requirements

7+ years in strategic partnerships, business development, corporate development, or capture management in the defense or robotics industry
Bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science, physics, business, international relations, or related professional experience
Large, established network across the air-domain robotics industry
Deep knowledge of adopted UAS platforms currently on contract with the DoW and the acquisition programs fielding them
Proven track record of structuring and executing complex partnership agreements
Understanding of autonomous systems, AI/ML, and UAS platform architectures
Willingness to travel 30-50%, including to customer sites, test events, or other engagements