Account Executive - Autonomous Systems

Account Executive — Autonomous Systems

Role Overview

Defense Unicorns is seeking an Account Executive to own and grow business across the autonomous systems and federal technology market.

This role will work with autonomous drone manufacturers, satellite and aerospace companies, Federal Systems Integrators, defense technology companies, and commercial organizations seeking to bring their products into the federal market.

The Account Executive will identify and develop strategic opportunities where Defense Unicorns can help customers build, deploy, secure, and operate modern software across mission systems and highly distributed environments. This includes platforms such as unmanned systems, satellites, weapons systems, tactical edge environments, and the infrastructure that supports them.

Working in close partnership with a Solutions Architect, the Account Executive will lead customer engagement from initial opportunity identification through technical discovery, solution development, commercial strategy, and close.

The ideal candidate understands that selling into this market rarely follows a traditional enterprise software motion. Success requires building relationships across engineering organizations, program leadership, business development teams, government stakeholders, systems integrators, and technology partners while understanding how Defense Unicorns can become part of a larger platform or program.

Key Responsibilities

• Own pipeline creation, account strategy, opportunity development, and revenue across the autonomous systems and federal markets territory.
• Develop relationships with autonomous drone manufacturers, aerospace and satellite companies, Federal Systems Integrators, defense technology companies, and commercial companies entering the federal market.
• Identify programs, platforms, and customer initiatives where cloud-native software, secure software delivery, data transport, and edge computing capabilities can create strategic value.
• Work closely with the paired Solutions Architect to lead customer discovery and understand mission requirements, platform architectures, technical constraints, acquisition strategies, and business objectives.
• Build and execute account plans for strategic customers, partners, platforms, and programs.
• Develop opportunities from early technical conversations through evaluation, contracting, deployment, expansion, and long-term partnership.
• Navigate complex opportunities involving multiple stakeholders, including engineering teams, program leadership, executives, government customers, acquisition organizations, and industry partners.
• Build relationships with Federal Systems Integrators and prime contractors to identify where Defense Unicorns can become part of larger program architectures and customer solutions.
• Work with commercial technology companies to develop strategies for bringing their capabilities into federal and defense environments.
• Identify opportunities for Defense Unicorns technology to be incorporated into new platforms during the design phase as well as existing platforms undergoing software modernization.
• Coordinate internal resources across Solutions Architecture, Engineering, Product, Marketing, Contracts, and company leadership to advance strategic opportunities.
• Develop compelling business cases and value propositions that connect Defense Unicorns capabilities to customer mission outcomes.
• Maintain a disciplined understanding of pipeline, opportunity stage, next actions, decision criteria, stakeholders, competitive position, and forecast.
• Negotiate commercial agreements and drive opportunities through procurement and contracting processes.
• Represent Defense Unicorns at industry events, customer meetings, partner engagements, technical demonstrations, and other market-facing activities.
• Capture market feedback and recurring customer needs to help influence product strategy, partnerships, and go-to-market priorities.

Partnership With the Solutions Architect

The Account Executive and Solutions Architect will operate as a tightly integrated customer team.

The Account Executive owns the business opportunity: identifying the right organizations and programs, developing relationships, understanding the buying environment, building the opportunity strategy, creating commercial alignment, and driving the opportunity to close.

The Solutions Architect owns the technical solution: understanding the customer's architecture, identifying where Defense Unicorns technology fits, developing solution architectures, and establishing technical confidence with customer engineering teams.

Together, they should be capable of engaging a customer early—sometimes before a formal requirement or procurement exists—and helping shape both the technical architecture and business path necessary to bring a capability into a federal program or mission system.

What Success Looks Like

A successful Account Executive in this role will build a portfolio of strategic relationships and opportunities across the companies designing the next generation of autonomous and mission systems.

They will be equally comfortable discussing a platform roadmap with the leadership team of an autonomous systems company, developing a teaming strategy with a Federal Systems Integrator, working through an opportunity with a defense program, or helping a commercial company determine how to enter the federal market.

Rather than simply responding to existing software procurements, they will identify opportunities early and help customers understand how modern software infrastructure can become an enabling layer within their platforms.

Over time, they will establish Defense Unicorns as a trusted partner to organizations building and integrating software-defined mission systems.

Desired Experience

• Demonstrated success selling complex technology solutions into federal, defense, aerospace, autonomous systems, or similarly complex markets.
• Experience developing and closing opportunities involving multiple technical, business, and government stakeholders.
• Strong understanding of the federal technology ecosystem, including government customers, Federal Systems Integrators, prime contractors, OEMs, and technology vendors.
• Experience building new markets or territories rather than exclusively managing established accounts.
• Ability to develop opportunities before a formal procurement or RFP exists.
• Experience navigating long, complex sales cycles involving partnerships, technical evaluations, contracting, and program-level decisions.
• Ability to understand technical concepts sufficiently to engage credibly with engineering and architecture teams.
• Familiarity with cloud-native software, DevSecOps, Kubernetes, edge computing, software delivery, data infrastructure, or adjacent technologies is highly desirable.
• Experience working with autonomous systems, drones, aerospace, satellites, robotics, weapons systems, or other software-defined platforms is highly desirable.
• Strong executive communication, relationship-building, negotiation, and account-planning skills.
• Ability to operate effectively in an ambiguous and rapidly evolving market where customers, technologies, programs, and acquisition strategies are still taking shape.

Ideal Background

This role may be a strong fit for someone who has worked as an Enterprise Account Executive, Strategic Account Executive, Federal Account Executive, Defense Technology Business Development Executive, Capture Manager, or sales leader serving defense, aerospace, autonomous systems, or emerging technology markets.

The strongest candidates will combine the discipline of an enterprise seller with the market-development instincts of a business development leader: someone who can create an opportunity where one does not yet exist, develop the ecosystem required to win it, and work alongside a deeply technical Solutions Architect to turn that opportunity into a deployed capability.

Base Salary:
$145,000 – $185,000 base salary.

This role is eligible to participate in Defense Unicorn's commission plan and it is common for employees in this role to receive total on-target earnings of $290k to $370k. 

Salary Range: 145000.0 - 185000.0 USD