Account Executive - Navy

About the role

Defense Unicorns is seeking mission-driven Account Executives to spearhead full-lifecycle capture and business development efforts across the Navy and Marine Corps ecosystem. This high-impact role involves shaping and leading strategic pursuits that align Defense Unicorns' unique strengths with emerging government needs.

Responsibilities

• Drive new Mission Hero acquisition across the Navy and Marine Corps ecosystem, ensuring alignment with Defense Unicorns' strategic growth objectives and solution capabilities.
• Develop and execute capture plans, win strategies, and competitive positioning to secure new business.
• Engage early with government stakeholders, primes, and ecosystem partners to shape opportunities ahead of solicitation.
• Understand customer pain points, acquisition timelines, and funding paths across the DoD, with emphasis on Navy and Marine Corps mission environments.
• Identify and lead teaming arrangements that enhance technical capabilities, socio-economic positioning, or incumbent advantage.
• Translate technical capabilities such as Unified Defense Stack (UDS), cATO acceleration, software delivery, DevSecOps, cybersecurity, tactical edge enablement, and edge deployments into persuasive win themes.
• Support RFI/RFP responses with market intelligence, SWOT analysis, and pricing strategy input.
• Maintain strong CRM discipline and pipeline hygiene, using data-driven insights to prioritize accounts, refine strategies, and improve forecasting.
• Represent the company at industry and government events to raise visibility, build relationships, and gather market intelligence.

Required Experience and Qualifications

• Proven ability to win complex technical pursuits through the full capture lifecycle.
• Experience selling into, supporting, or working with Navy and/or Marine Corps mission environments.
• Strong understanding of DoD business development, capture, and acquisition processes, including customer shaping, opportunity qualification, teaming, and proposal support.
• Ability to ramp quickly, operate independently, and manage ambiguity in a fast-moving environment.
• Strong CRM discipline and comfort using pipeline data to prioritize accounts, forecast opportunities, and maintain pipeline hygiene.
• Excellent communication, strategic thinking, and leadership skills across technical, executive, government, and partner audiences.
• Experience coordinating multi-disciplinary teams to deliver successful proposals.
• Eligibility to obtain a U.S. security clearance.

Preferred Experience and Qualifications

• Background in surface warfare, fleet operations, or air domain mission areas.
• Startup or high-growth technology company experience.
• Familiarity with Navy acquisition processes, including FAR-based contracts, OTAs, SBIR, IDIQs, and other relevant pathways.
• Working knowledge of software factory environments, DevSecOps, cybersecurity, tactical edge deployments, secure software delivery, or compute/software infrastructure.
• Experience translating technical capabilities into mission-aligned value propositions and persuasive win themes.
• Active security clearance.
• Existing relationships across Navy, Marine Corps, primes, or relevant defense technology ecosystems.

Pay

The position offers a base salary of $145,000 - $185,000. A substantial component of total compensation is based on highly competitive commission on net new ARR, rewarding exceptional performance.