Technology Portfolio Director

Defense Innovation Unit•Mountain View, CA

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is a Department of War (DoW) organization focused exclusively on accelerating the adoption of commercial technology throughout the military and growing the national security innovation base. As the Department’s gateway to leading technology companies across the country, DIU is focused on rapid prototyping, fielding, and scaling of commercial solutions that can save lives, lead to new operational concepts, increase efficiency, and save taxpayer dollars. DIU has a variety of missions which bring academic and private sector solutions to national security problems. To accomplish this mission, we seek a wide variety of backgrounds including military experience, high technology product development and leadership, operations expertise, and general program management experience.

Requirements

Extensive commercial and defense acquisition expertise.
Experience in systems engineering.
Experience in operations research, wargaming, and predictive analytics.
Experience in quantitative assessment, testing, and operational integration of hardware and software solutions.
Experience in supervising government personnel (civilian and military) and contractors.
Experience in planning work, setting priorities, and evaluating performance.

Nice To Haves

Military experience.
High technology product development and leadership.
Operations expertise.
General program management experience.

Responsibilities

Provides overarching strategic and technical leadership to bridge Department of War (DoW) capability gaps with cutting-edge commercial solutions.
Drives the enterprise-level strategy across one of three critical technological domains: Autonomous Warfare (unmanned systems and the core autonomy stack), the Kill Chain (advanced sensors, networks, and decision systems), or 10x Technologies (energy, power, logistics and sustainment, biosecurity, infrastructure, and human systems).
Guides the development, assessment, and integration of advanced technologies—ranging from computer vision and counter-UAS to next-generation networking and resilient infrastructure.
Fosters robust partnerships with senior government officials (including OSW, JCS, and Congress) and industry leaders.
Aligns complex product strategies with DoW modernization priorities, negotiating critical agreements and advising project teams on systems engineering to maintain U.S. technological superiority.
Oversees the rigorous quantitative assessment, testing, and operational integration of intricate hardware and software solutions tailored to their specific portfolio.
Champions operations research, wargaming, and predictive analytics to ensure that investments in these emerging technologies yield measurable, data-driven enhancements to military readiness and mission effectiveness.
Educates senior DoW leadership on technological trade-offs and risk assessments, ensuring that analytical models and decision-support tools constantly align with overarching operational objectives.
Exercises full supervisory responsibility over a diverse workforce of government personnel (civilian and military) and contractors, specifically directing the Program Managers and Project Managers who lead these technically complex programs.
Proactively plans the work to be accomplished, sets and dynamically adjusts portfolio priorities to meet emerging mission demands, and evaluates the work performance of subordinates to ensure a high-performing team capable of delivering critical technologies to the warfighter.