Director, Canadian Defence Programs

Alchemy is a nanotechnology company building solutions for the automotive and defence industries. We are transforming legacy industries by vertically integrating our coatings innovations into category leading ready-to-use solutions. Our two main solutions are:

• ExoShield windshield protection films for the automotive industry
• Crypsis infrared camouflage coatings for the defence industry

We are at the growth-stage of our journey and are focused on sustainable top-line growth across both our automotive and defence business units. Alchemy is backed by leading investors and incubators in Canada, USA, and France such as Y-Combinator, Stanford-StartX, Pathfinder, Pembroke, NameSilo, and more.

Our team is a diverse, tight knit group of engineers, scientists, and business professionals that likes to spend time together in and out of the office, whether that is weekly badminton nights or team lunches. We are a team passionate about cars, cool technology, and working together to dominate the market segments we operate in.

You can learn more about Alchemy at:

Role Summary

Alchemy is looking for a Director, Canadian Defence Programs to build and advance opportunities for Crypsis and, where relevant, ExoShield across the Canadian defence market. This is a customer-facing, technically credible market leadership role focused on DND, CAF, Canadian defence primes, integrators, and relevant defence ecosystem partners.

Crypsis is a capability platform that integrates into other products and systems, while ExoShield may support select defence‑related vehicle and protection applications. This role requires structured business development, technical customer discovery, disciplined opportunity movement, and close internal coordination with leadership, product, technical, and operations team members.

This is a senior hands‑on role for someone who is excited to help build a growing defence business unit inside a fast‑growing technology company. This role owns the Canadian defence market while staying close to the work required to create the relationships, systems, and momentum needed to scale.

Key Responsibilities

• Identify, map, and prioritize Canadian defence opportunities across DND, CAF, Canadian primes, integrators, law enforcement channels, and relevant defence partners.
• Maintain a concrete pipeline that captures target accounts, target units, key stakeholders, current status, next steps, decision‑makers, users, influencers, funding/procurement paths, and timelines.
• Build and maintain a qualified Canadian defence opportunity pipeline, including target opportunities, estimated opportunity value, stage, probability, funding/procurement path, next step, and expected timeline.
• Create clear opportunity pathways from initial target identification through customer engagement, technical discovery, demonstration, pilot, procurement, or partnership.

Technical Discovery

• Understand the mission problem, operating environment, platform or system context, integration pathway, technical constraints, and validation requirements behind each opportunity.
• Identify where Crypsis could integrate into existing garments, platforms, systems, or partner products, and what would make the solution credible to the customer.
• Translate customer conversations into clear opportunity hypotheses, technical questions, validation needs, and next steps.
• Research and prioritize relevant customers, end users, primes, integrators, partners, and stakeholders across the Canadian defence market.
• Conduct targeted outreach with thoughtful emails, credible technical positioning, and clear rationale.
• Maintain disciplined follow‑up so that promising conversations continue moving forward and do not stall after initial interest.

Opportunity Advancement

• Advance qualified European defence opportunities toward pipeline and revenue targets, including technical meetings, end‑user feedback, demos, field trials, funded pilots, partner integrations, procurement pathways, and contracts.
• Identify the likely sequence of steps required to move from initial interest to adoption and actively manage opportunities through that path.
• Use good judgement to identify when an opportunity needs additional internal support, technical input, senior engagement, or strategic guidance to move forward.

Internal Coordination

• Provide structured market input, including customer need, use case, operational context, stakeholder, urgency, funding potential, technical unknowns, and proposed next step.
• Work with relevant internal teams to support RFIs, RFPs, proposals, demos, and customer follow‑up related to the Canadian market.
• Coordinate internal support for Canadian opportunities without bypassing established product and technical prioritization processes.

Other

• Filling in capability or capacity gaps in the team as required to ensure key opportunities keep moving forward and key events, milestones, demos, or initiatives do not miss the mark.

Our Ideal Candidate

We are looking for a hands‑on, high‑accountability operator who wants to help scale a young but proven defence business unit. This role is best suited for someone who is motivated by an early‑stage growth environment, comfortable adding structure as the business scales, and energized by the hands‑on work of outreach, research, follow‑up, and coordination required to move opportunities forward.

• Structured thinker who can map a market, prioritize opportunities, organize a pipeline, maintain strong documentation, and identify practical next steps to create forward momentum.
• Commercially minded, with the ability to understand customer needs, funding & procurement pathways, partner dynamics, and think strategically about how to advance an opportunity.
• Able to learn technical details quickly, build credibility with technical customers, understand constraints, ask good questions, and represent a capability platform without overpromising.
• Strong sense of ownership and accountability, with the judgement to take responsibility for outcomes, flag issues early, and drive work forward independently.
• Clear, professional communicator with strong judgement, high character, and the maturity to represent the company with government, military, prime contractor, and technical stakeholders.
• Comfortable operating in a startup environment where the role requires both market ownership and hands‑on execution.
• Experience selling to government or military customers, working in the defence ecosystem, or serving in a military/government environment is a strong asset.

Security Requirements

You must meet CISD and DDTC requirements for secret level personal security clearances to be eligible for this role. You are not required to have a security clearance already, although having one is a bonus.

If you do not already have CISD and DDTC security clearances, Alchemy will request information during the final steps of the interview process to perform a preliminary assessment for eligibility and likelihood of success in gaining a security clearance. If successful, we will assist you through the administrative process of gaining any required security clearances following your start date.

Other Requirements

In addition, to be considered for this position you must:

• Legally be able to work in Canada
• Pass federal and local criminal background checks
• Able to periodically commute to our headquarters in Kitchener for training, all‑hands, etc.
• Able to travel internationally for conferences, trade shows, customer meetings, demos, etc. on an as‑needed basis