Business Development Lead, Us Defense Uas

A hands-on, field-based business development role. You make the calls, take the trips, and run the meetings.
You are the bridge between Smart Flight™ and the defense UAV operators who fly. Your job: get into the field, put the product in front of operators, learn how they really plan and fly missions, and feed that ground truth straight into the product.
Company:
Shearwater Aerospace (Montreal, QC)
Location:
United States, remote, living close to a defense UAS ecosystem
Reports to:
CEO. Works day to day with the CTO on product feedback.
Type:
Full-time (contract-to-hire acceptable, see note)
Travel:
30–50% (US, with travel to Canada: test ranges, operator sites, defense UAS events)
Why this role existsSmart Flight™ is an intelligent autonomy layer that plans and adapts missions in real time for fixed-wing UAV BVLOS operations. Developed in partnership with DARPA, we fly at White Sands and are in partnership discussions with a major prime. What we do not have yet is a systematic presence with the people who feel the planning pain daily: defense UAV operators and the contractors who fly for them.
You build that presence. That means on-site, in the crew room, earning operator trust and living where the aircraft fly — pointed at learning: how they plan today, where it breaks, what a bad plan costs them. You open the doors, run the field work, and bring the founders into the conversations that matter. The CTO joins for the technical depth;
you make it happen and keep it happening. What you hear changes what we build, on a weekly cycle, and the operator network you develop stays yours to grow with the role (see Career path).
Who you'll work with
Defense services contractors and operators-for-hire (ISR, range support, flight test crews)
Military and military-adjacent UAS units and their support ecosystem
Ops managers and mission planners inside those organizations
What you'll ownMarket map and field access (end-to-end)
Build the target map from zero: organizations, programs, and the named individuals who actually plan and fly missions. There is no list waiting for you
Reach operators through the channels this community respects: warm intros, events, ranges, veteran networks, direct approach. This is a small community and we get one first impression per organization
Own the full loop: source, contact, follow up, schedule, travel. Founders join the conversations;
you generate them
Field engagement and evaluations
Run discovery conversations, solo or with founders, using our interview guide: current workflow, tools in use, what breaks, what it costs, in their words
Run structured product evaluations: put SFP in front of operators, watch them plan a real mission with it, capture where they hesitate, what they ignore, what they ask for
Represent Shearwater at defense UAS events, ranges, and exercises;
be the person operatorsrecognize and trust
Learning capture
Write a short after-action report on every conversation and evaluation, into a shared repository the founders read directly. Use the operator's own words wherever the wording matters — we would rather have the quote than your paraphrase — but this is a field report, not a transcript
Maintain contact and organization records with discipline: every interaction tracked, every follow-up kept
Secure return engagements;
an operator who comes back is our strongest signal
Flag patterns weekly: pains heard repeatedly, workflow surprises, competing tools, requested capabilities
First 90 days — explicit success criteria
By day 30: the market map and the plan to work it
— 50+ target organizations and 100+ named individuals, prioritized, with your own outreach approach for each segment. Nobody hands you this;
you build it and then run it
30 conversations
with target operators;
founders present in at least 15
Written evidence per conversation
in the shared repo, in the operator's own words
Top 3 pain hypotheses validated or killed, with named sources
10 operators agree to a second conversation or evaluation
In the first 90 days you are measured on access and evidence — the doors you open and what you bring back. Revenue follows from that, and the plan for it is built on what you find
Career pathMarket development in defense starts before there is a pipeline. The first work is finding the organizations, getting in the room, and establishing what they actually need. That is what makes a pipeline possible.
Phase 1 — Field discovery (roughly 1–2 quarters).
The mandate above. Every operator relationship you build is yours to keep
Phase 2 — Commercial ownership.
When operators start pulling, you own those relationships through evaluation, adoption, and early revenue
The transition is evidence-triggered, not calendar-triggered:
10+ operators asking for the product unprompted, 3+ organizations in repeat engagement, core pain hypotheses confirmed. The founders sign off together. This protects you too: you will not be held accountable for revenue before the product has earned the demand.
Must-haves
Credibility with UAS operators, earned one of two ways: you have planned or flown real missions yourself (military or civil), or you have spent years selling or supporting a comparable product to the people who do. Either way, you can hold a technical conversation about how a mission gets planned and flown
An existing network in the US defense UAS community that you can start working in week one
Day-one fluency: you know the acronyms, the culture, and who to call. We cannot ramp you
Demonstrated self-directed outreach: in some prior context, you built a contact list from nothing and worked it (recruiting, capture, event organizing, community building all count)
Comfortable with rejection, follow-up discipline, and meticulous contact tracking
Willing and able to travel across the US and to Canada;
US Person
Writes clearly and fast;
your notes are our product input
Nice-to-haves
BVLOS operational experience or CONOPS/waiver work
Familiarity with GCS tooling (Mission Planner, QGC, UgCS) and the planning workflow around them
Prior customer discovery, capture analysis, field research, or FSR (Field Service Representative) experience
Existing relationships at test ranges or with defense services primes' flight test orgs
Prior capture, business development, or defense sales experience — a plus, but hustle and network matter more
An active or recently active US security clearance. We value it for the access and credibility it brings;
note that we are not currently in a position to sponsor or maintain one, so this is an asset rather than a requirement
US military service in a UAS, aviation, or mission-planning role, or a reserve affiliation. Not required, but a fresh operator network and firsthand knowledge of the culture shorten your path
Who won't fit
You have never worked directly with UAS operators, whether flying alongside them or selling to them
People who tell us what we want to hear. The value of every conversation is what the operator actually said, not a version shaped to sound encouraging
Part-time consultants;
this is a full-contact,on-the-road job
Anyone expecting to direct the work rather than do it. This phase is hands-on — you make the calls, take the trips, run the meetings. Founders are your backup
How we'll hire
Intro call with the founders (fit, background, your network)
Sourcing exercise (48 hours): given our target segment, bring back 15 named organizations, 5 named individuals, and your first-touch approach for 3 of them. If this sounds fun, you're our candidate
Deep-dive with both founders, including a mock discovery conversation
References from operators you have flown with, supported, or sold to, not managers
Compensation
USD $130,000–$170,000 base depending on network depth and proven selling record, plus meaningful early-stage equity
Commission on closed business — target 2–5%, structure agreed before you start
Full travel expenses covered
Note: a 3–6 month contract-to-hire structure is on the table for candidates who prefer to de-risk mutually
Reporting and structure
Reports to the CEO, who owns demand generation and go-to-market. The CTO owns the product feedback loop: what you learn drives what we build, so your field evidence goes directly to the person who changes the product
Weekly sync with both founders: the CEO on targets, field schedule, and pipeline;
the CTO on patterns andproduct implications. Async raw notes continuously
Works alongside our business operations function, not under it
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