Mission Architect

Twenty•Arlington, VA

About The Position

At Twenty, we're taking on one of the most critical challenges of our time: defending democracies in the digital age. We develop revolutionary technologies that operate at the intersection of the cyber and electromagnetic domains, where the speed of operations exceeds human sensing and complexity transcends conventional boundaries. Our team doesn't just solve problems – we deliver game-changing outcomes that directly impact national security. We're pragmatic optimists who understand that while our mission of protecting America and its allies is challenging, success is possible. Role Summary The Mission Architect is the senior domain expert embedded on a product team to ensure what gets built matches how users actually work. You will turn real operational workflows, constraints, and edge cases into clear product requirements, testable acceptance criteria, and high-fidelity user experiences. You will partner closely with Product Managers, engineers, designers, and researchers to keep product decisions grounded in reality. This role is for someone who has deep credibility in their field and wants to shape software that materially improves outcomes for practitioners. Who You Are You bring real credibility in your domain and instinctively separate what sounds good in theory from what works in practice. You care deeply about building products that hold up under real operational pressure, not just in ideal test conditions. You are comfortable working through ambiguity and turning messy, incomplete inputs into clear direction for a team. You communicate clearly across audiences, from hands-on practitioners to senior leaders. You raise the quality bar by being exacting about workflows, usability, and what “done” actually means for the user. You collaborate well with product and engineering teams, even when they do not share your domain background. You are trusted to bring direct feedback, sound judgment, and a practical point of view to difficult trade-offs.

Requirements

You have 7+ years of hands-on experience as a practitioner in the product’s target domain, such as cyber operations, intelligence analysis, capability acquisition, or a comparable field.
You have strong credibility with practitioners in that domain and a track record of trusted judgment in high-stakes work.
You have experience translating complex operational workflows into structured product requirements, user stories, or other build-ready documentation.
You have helped shape user-facing tools, workflows, or interfaces used in real operational environments.
You have strong written and verbal communication skills across technical, operational, and executive audiences.
You have experience working cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and related teams.
You have strong judgment for defining acceptance criteria and evaluating whether a feature truly meets user needs.

Nice To Haves

You have transitioned from a practitioner role into product development, requirements engineering, or capability development.
You have worked with AI/ML-powered products, including agentic systems, LLM-based workflows, or knowledge graph applications.
You have experience in evaluation design, operational test and evaluation, or scenario-based product assessment.
You have created training content, reference materials, or doctrine for operational users.
You have influenced product direction at a software company serving government or defense customers.

Responsibilities

You will translate complex user workflows, decision points, and constraints into clear requirements and user stories that engineering can build from.
You will partner with the Product Manager to shape PRDs, refine scope, and ensure roadmap items reflect real user needs.
You will define and refine acceptance criteria so delivered work is validated against operational reality, not just technical correctness.
You will run the product through realistic end-to-end scenarios and surface usability issues, workflow gaps, and edge cases early.
You will review features before release and confirm they behave correctly in the way users actually work.
You will design evaluation scenarios, scoring approaches, and benchmark workflows that measure real user impact.
You will shape workflows, information architecture, and interface behavior so the product feels native to the domain.
You will serve as the product team’s primary domain expert, helping engineers, designers, and researchers make better decisions faster.
You will support customer conversations and demonstrations, translating product capabilities into language that resonates with practitioners and leadership.
You will surface emerging user needs, new use cases, and deployment opportunities that inform future product direction.