Founding Business Development Lead
Pillar Space · Los Angeles, CA · hybrid
USD 185,000 to 275,000 per year
FOUNDING BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT LEAD
Equity: 0.3% – 1% depending on experience
ABOUT US
We're a stealth team building space hardware at the edge of what's currently possible — high-stakes, flight-grade systems where the engineering bar is unforgiving and the upside is enormous. While we can't share full details yet, our founding and early engineering team includes talent from SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, and Impulse Space, the group includes people who've pulled off feats almost no one else on Earth has.
ROLE OVERVIEW
We are seeking a Business Development Lead to build our customer base from first principles — finding the missions that need what we're building, winning the contracts and partnerships that fund it, and making sure the market shapes what we build next.
This is a senior leadership role. You will not only define and execute our go-to-market strategy across commercial and U.S. Government customers, but also help build the business development team, set standards, mentor team members, and establish the systems, processes, and culture required to win in both markets.
This is not a narrow sales role. You will own the full pipeline: market and customer discovery, relationships with operators, primes, and government program offices, capture strategy, proposals and pricing, contract negotiation, and the partnerships that open new markets. You will partner closely with the founders and engineering leads to turn customer needs into requirements and roadmap, and make tradeoffs across opportunity size, technical fit, timeline, margin, risk, and strategic value.
The ideal candidate has direct experience selling space systems or services to both commercial customers and the U.S. Government, deep relationships across the space ecosystem, and team leadership experience. We recognize that very few people have all of this. What matters most is that you have exceptional judgment, have closed meaningful deals in complex technical markets, have managed or mentored people in high-performance environments, and can operate independently in ambiguity while making sound business tradeoffs. You will have direct ownership over one of the company's core challenges.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Own go-to-market strategy across commercial and U.S. Government markets, from market sizing and positioning through pipeline, capture, award, and customer success.
- Identify and qualify opportunities across defense, intelligence, civil, and commercial space, and build a pipeline that balances near-term revenue with long-term strategic position.
- Build relationships with U.S. Government stakeholders — program offices, requirements owners, innovation organizations, and contracting officers — across organizations such as the U.S. Space Force, Space Development Agency, NRO, AFRL, DIU, DARPA, Missile Defense Agency, and NASA.
- Build relationships with commercial customers and partners: satellite operators, constellation builders, prime contractors, launch providers, and hosted payload and in-space services companies.
- Lead capture for government opportunities: shaping requirements before solicitations, competitive analysis, teaming strategy, win themes, and bid/no-bid decisions.
- Pursue both non-traditional and traditional vehicles: SBIR/STTR, Other Transaction Agreements, Commercial Solutions Openings, BAAs, IDIQs, and FAR-based contracts, including strategic funding programs (e.g., SpaceWERX STRATFI/TACFI).
- Lead proposal development: own the process, write and edit compelling technical and business volumes, coordinate engineering inputs, and run color team reviews.
- Own pricing and deal structure with finance and engineering: cost volumes, price-to-win, commercial pricing models, and terms that protect margin and schedule.
- Lead negotiations with legal: commercial MSAs, SOWs, NDAs, teaming agreements, and government contract terms, including IP and data rights.
- Run commercial sales cycles end to end: discovery, technical solutioning with engineering, proposals, negotiation, and close.
- Develop strategic partnerships with primes, suppliers, launch providers, and other space companies that expand our reach or capabilities.
- Bring the market back into the product: translate customer needs and mission requirements into input for the roadmap, requirements, and pricing with the founders and engineering.
- Work with legal and compliance on export control in deals: ITAR and EAR, foreign customers and partners, and licensing and agreements.
- Track the funding landscape — budgets, appropriations, programs of record, and acquisition policy — and position the company ahead of shifts.
- Build BD infrastructure: CRM, pipeline reporting and forecasting, proposal libraries, and past performance records.
- Represent the company at conferences, industry days, and customer meetings, and help shape our public narrative as we come out of stealth.
- Provide leadership across business development, capture, proposals, and partnerships.
- Help hire, manage, mentor, and develop BD, capture, and proposal staff as the team grows.
- Establish BD processes: pipeline stages, gate reviews, bid/no-bid criteria, proposal standards, and procurement integrity and conflict-of-interest compliance.
- Help define revenue targets, the BD budget, and a customer strategy that supports fundraising.
- Work closely with engineering, program management, finance, legal, and operations to make sure what we sell is what we can build.
- Work closely with the founders and early team to shape the roadmap, culture, hiring plan, and long-term commercial and government strategy.
- Represent the BD function in investor conversations and diligence, board updates, customer negotiations, and strategic planning as needed.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- Bachelor's degree in engineering, a physical science, business, or a related discipline.
- 8+ years in business development, capture, sales, or program roles in the space, defense, or aerospace industry.
- Demonstrated success winning business with both commercial customers and U.S. Government customers.
- Track record of closing complex, technical deals — contracts, partnerships, or programs — with meaningful revenue.
- Prior experience leading teams, managing people, mentoring, or building BD or capture organizations.
- Working knowledge of U.S. Government acquisition: FAR and DFARS, contract types, OTAs, SBIR/STTR, and the federal budget process.
- Experience leading proposals from capture through submission, including pricing and win strategy.
- Strong technical fluency: you can hold your own with engineers and customers on spacecraft capabilities, mission needs, and tradeoffs.
- An established network across government program offices, primes, and commercial space companies.
- Experience negotiating contract terms, including IP and data rights, liability, and payment milestones.
- Excellent written and verbal communication, from proposal writing to executive presentations.
- Ability to work independently with limited direction, identify the right next opportunity, and drive from ambiguity to signed contracts.
- Ability to make practical tradeoffs across opportunity size, technical fit, timeline, margin, risk, and strategy.
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.
- Willingness to travel frequently, including to Washington, D.C., customer sites, and industry events.
HIGHLY VALUABLE EXPERIENCE
We do not expect every candidate to have all of the following. The strongest candidates will likely have depth in some areas and the ability to quickly learn the others.
- An active TS/SCI clearance or recent experience supporting classified programs.
- Experience at a space startup, taking a company from its first customer to scaled revenue.
- Experience with programs at the U.S. Space Force (e.g., Space Systems Command, SpaceWERX), Space Development Agency, NRO, DIU, AFRL,