Operations - Growth Operations

Qualifications

• 3+ years in a growth operations, business development, sales operations, revenue operations, government affairs, investment banking, management consulting, or special projects role at a high-tempo, high-ownership environment
• Hands-on experience managing a BD pipeline: building schemas, dashboards, and workflows, and holding a team accountable to using them
• Strong project management instincts; proven ability to drive complex, multi-stakeholder processes (e.g., proposals, M&A diligence, large commercial deals) to an on-time result
• Strong financial and analytical fluency; comfortable in Excel, running scenario and win-rate analyses, and reasoning about pipeline health and forecast accuracy from numbers
• Exceptional written and verbal communication. You will draft proposals, briefing memos, customer-facing materials, and investor updates that need to meet the bar of the most senior people in the room
• Willingness and interest to travel to customer sites, conferences, DC, and government facilities
• High ownership and a bias to action. You would rather unblock the team by running something yourself than wait for someone else to do it

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience in defense tech, national security, or government contracting; familiarity with FAR / DFARS, OTAs, BAAs, SBIR / STTR, and the federal procurement lifecycle is a plus
• Experience working with or inside a government affairs, lobbying, or policy shop, or direct exposure to Hill and agency engagement
• Background in or exposure to life sciences, pharma, or biotech commercial operations
• Experience at an high-growth startup, ideally as one of the first GTM or operations hires

About the role

The role owns the operational machine that turns a first conversation into a funded contract, and keeps the pipeline honest, legible, and moving. You will work directly alongside the Head of Operations, Forward Deployed Engineers, and Founders on the highest-leverage customer-facing problems we face.

Responsibilities

• Run the pipeline: qualify and prioritize opportunities across federal, national lab, and commercial customers; drive weekly pipeline reviews; and hold the team accountable to the milestones and timelines each deal requires
• Manage our government affairs and lobbying program: coordinate with our external lobbyists and policy advisors, track legislative and regulatory activity relevant to biodefense and biosecurity, prepare briefing materials for Hill and agency meetings, and help shape and source funding for new biodefense programs
• Represent Valthos externally: attend conferences, industry events, and customer meetings; build and maintain relationships with program managers, contracting officers, and commercial counterparts; and bring back a clean account of what you learned that the rest of the team can act on
• Drive proposals, contracts, and procurement end-to-end: project-manage SBIR / STTR, OTA, BAA, and commercial responses; coordinate with technical contributors; and own the schedule, the submission, and the follow-through
• Build the growth playbook: document what works and what does not, turn every win and loss into a reusable pattern, and help the team get better at each successive deal
• Pick up generalist operations work as the company needs it: investor diligence support, events, internal offsites, facilities emergencies, and whatever else is required to keep the team moving