Technical Deployment Strategist

About Manifold

Strategy is the act of choosing what to do when you can’t know enough to be sure. Manifold builds software for the people making those decisions on behalf of the United States. The ones whose decisions shape the next decade, not the next quarter.

This work is still done largely by hand, by smart people with slide decks, spreadsheets, and instinct. We think it should be done with better tools. Not tools that make the decisions, but tools that sharpen the judgement of the people responsible for them. Cognitive enhancement, in the literal sense.

A Techo at Manifold is first and foremost role is to set the conditions for success. More concretely, this touches on 3 points: people, contracts, and BD-Engineering dynamics.

1. People:

   1. A product no matter how good cannot sell itself and it's always the people that make the decision to fund or not fund, and people will always be more likely to fund a project from a company they trust. Your goal is to authentically establish that trust and that means even if sometimes it's contrary to the company’s short term interests.

2. Contracts:

   1. This is the thing that will actually fund our product development after the people are on board. Oftentimes the government champion does not understand the acquisition process and it's our job to reduce that friction by bringing them funding sources and contract vehicles to become the partner-of-least -friction.

3. BD-Engineering interplay

   1. When BD and Engineering are tightly integrated, product iteration is fast and every demo is intentionally set-up to maximize the chance of our product resonating. There are countless examples where poor interplay results in resentment from Engineering to GTM; we will not be one of those companies.

Genuine relationships, not just a rolodex. Anyone can claim contacts. What separates exceptional people is whether senior officials actually take their calls, trust their judgment, and advocate for them internally. The relationship has to be bidirectional and authentic. They bring value to the government person with our product and their advice, not just extract access.

Networking Taste. In a way, government sponsors are an extension of our talent team. They have to be able to hone in on talented and motivated government officials and rapidly build trust with them. This means filtering by background, work ethic, reputation, intelligence or a different combination of those. There are countless people they can speak with, the key is differentiating which ones are worth the time.

Understanding how money moves. OTAs, SBIRs, CRADAs, program elements, continuing resolutions, knowing the acquisition pathways and how to position a company within them is a real skill most BD people don't have. The exceptional ones can architect a contracting strategy, not just open doors.

Institutional pattern recognition. The government moves slowly and politically. Knowing which offices have budget authority versus influence, who the real decision makers are versus the nominal ones, how to navigate a requirements process.

Comfort operating at multiple levels simultaneously. Working with an O6, and a program manager and an OSW office at the same time without the threads getting tangled.

Mission credibility. Especially in defense, operators and military officials can smell a pure salesperson immediately. The exceptional GTM person genuinely understands the problem set and can have a substantive conversation about it.

Technical Understanding. Manifold is a technology company, not a service company. The Techo needs to have an innate curiosity towards applied engineering to be able to internalize our product differentiation and give targeted product feedback to the engineering team. Without a baseline technical knowledge and curiosity to develop that base further, they will give many “good ideas” without recognizing engineering rhythm and constraints and will breed resentment with Engineering and Product teams. This will also ensure a well integrated BD-Engineering relationship.

Work Ethic. Taking a call with a customer late at night should not be a chore; they should look forward to every call with the client no matter the hour. We are 3 days in person at our Arlington office or onsite in a SCIF as required.

Qualifications:

• 1-3 years at a technology company in a BD, program or project management role.

• Abilities, with the help of AI, to write clean code and deploy pull requests to demo stack is strongly preferred.

• Military Service and STEM education strongly preferred.

Benefits

• 401(k) with matching

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents

• Unlimited PTO

• Health & Wellness stipend

• Lunch stipend 3 times per week and dinner stipend after 8 p.m.

• Company-wide break the last two weeks of the year

• Supportive leave of absence including time off for military service, medical events, and parental leave