Strategic Growth Manager

Icarus•El Segundo, CA

About The Position

You will own the execution of Icarus's revenue pipeline. You will find opportunities and carry them through capture, submission, award paperwork, and follow-on contracting — the same person who identifies a solicitation sees it through to signed contract. You will represent Icarus in front of the customers, partners, congressional stakeholders, and investors who fund our mission. This is a high-ownership seat at a fast-moving defense startup, reporting to the Director of Growth and working directly with the Head of Business and CEO.

Requirements

2–4 years in business development, capture, account management, or go-to-market roles; defense, aerospace, or govtech exposure strongly preferred.
Exceptional written communication: able to turn engineer inputs into compliant, compelling proposal prose on deadline.
Demonstrated fluency with AI tools in daily work — prompt-driven drafting, research, and workflow automation — and an instinct to systematize rather than repeat manual tasks.
Strong interpersonal presence: comfortable and credible in front of senior military, government, congressional, and investor audiences.
Highly organized, deadline-driven, and self-directed; thrives with ownership and ambiguity.
Willingness to travel (~20%), including international; ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.
U.S. citizenship required.

Responsibilities

Hunt, identify, and qualify opportunities across SAM.gov, SBIR/STTR topics, Vulcan, ONI, various consortia, BAAs, COCOM/service technical interest items, and various other solicitation means.
Own the opportunity pipeline and tracker: status, deadlines, owners, and win probability for every active pursuit, with a weekly rollup to Growth and Business leadership.
Monitor solicitation amendments, Q&A windows, and submission deadlines.
Drive proposals end to end: outlines, compliance matrices, volume drafting, coordination of technical inputs from engineering and pricing from finance, final production, and on-time submission.
Draft responses to RFIs, RFPs, white paper calls, and capability requests.
Own submission mechanics across government portals (SAM.gov, DSIP, Vulcan, eBuy, consortium portals) and ensure every submission is compliant and complete.
Carry awards across the finish line: evaluation-phase Q&A, clarifications, pitch and demo logistics, representations and certifications, registrations, and contract execution paperwork.
Support follow-on contracting: modifications, option exercises, and continuation proposals on awarded work.
Build the processes and procedures that make the business team faster, using agentic AI as a force multiplier — automated opportunity discovery and solicitation monitoring, AI-assisted proposal drafting and compliance checking, and pipeline workflows that run without manual touch.
Use AI daily in your own work — finding opportunities, drafting responses, and producing collateral — and to turn what works into repeatable playbooks the whole team adopts.
Represent Icarus at conferences, trade shows, and customer engagements (AUSA, SOF Week, regional and international events), working the booth and the room with government, prime, congressional, and investor stakeholders.
Assist the Director of External Affairs on event strategy: contributing ideas on where we show up, how we stand out, and which engagements matter.
Own event follow-up: every lead, contact, and commitment from an engagement gets captured, actioned, and tracked within 48 hours.
Support VIP engagements — facility visits, demonstration guests, congressional and senior-leader visits, hosted receptions — and serve as a consistent, credible Icarus point of contact between formal engagements.
Maintain core BD collateral — capability statements, quad charts, briefing decks, one-pagers — keeping them current with approved company messaging.
Keep CRM and pipeline hygiene tight and capture after-actions from meetings and events so institutional knowledge compounds.