--- title: "Business Development Lead, US Defense UAS · Remote · Shearwater Aerospace" description: "United States · Remote — A hands-on, field-based business development role. You make the calls, take the trips, and run the meetings. You are the bridge…" canonical_url: "https://www.dronejobs.app/jobs/shearwater-aerospace-business-development-lead-us-defense-uas" meta: "og:description": "United States · Remote — A hands-on, field-based business development role. You make the calls, take the trips, and run the meetings. You are the bridge…" "og:image": "https://www.dronejobs.app/_og/d/c_JobPosting%2Cslug_shearwater-aerospace-business-development-lead-us-defense-uas%2Cp_Ii9qb2JzL3NoZWFyd2F0ZXItYWVyb3NwYWNlLWJ1c2luZXNzLWRldmVsb3BtZW50LWxlYWQtdXMtZGVmZW5zZS11YXMi%2Cs_2d5C55mBGIhRTpe8.png" "og:image:height": "630" "og:image:type": image/png "og:image:width": "1200" "og:title": "Business Development Lead, US Defense UAS · Remote · Shearwater Aerospace" "twitter:image": "https://www.dronejobs.app/_og/d/c_JobPosting%2Cslug_shearwater-aerospace-business-development-lead-us-defense-uas%2Cp_Ii9qb2JzL3NoZWFyd2F0ZXItYWVyb3NwYWNlLWJ1c2luZXNzLWRldmVsb3BtZW50LWxlYWQtdXMtZGVmZW5zZS11YXMi%2Cs_2d5C55mBGIhRTpe8.png" --- > Index of every page on this site: [llms.txt](https://www.dronejobs.app/llms.txt) [Back to jobs](https://www.dronejobs.app/jobs) ![Logo of Shearwater Aerospace](https://assets.jobbb.io/cdn-cgi/image/w=128,h=128,f=auto/logos/01m2g0vax52g3pv2at4epymjt2_1789391645.png) **Shearwater Aerospace** **Actively hiring ** # **Business Development Lead, US Defense UAS**
Workplace
**Remote**
Commitment
**Full-time**
Seniority
**Lead**
Salary
$130,000-170,000/yr
Posted
26d ago
Location United States --- 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 exists Smart 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 own **Market 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 operators recognize 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 path Market 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 1. Intro call with the founders (fit, background, your network) 2. 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 3. Deep-dive with both founders, including a mock discovery conversation 4. 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 and product implications. Async raw notes continuously - Works alongside our business operations function, not under it ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@id":"https://www.dronejobs.app/#website","@type":"WebSite","inLanguage":"en","name":"DroneJobs","url":"https://www.dronejobs.app","publisher":{"@id":"https://www.dronejobs.app/#identity"}},{"@id":"https://www.dronejobs.app/jobs/shearwater-aerospace-business-development-lead-us-defense-uas#webpage","@type":"WebPage","description":"United States · Remote — A hands-on, field-based business development role. You make the calls, take the trips, and run the meetings. You are the bridge…","name":"Business Development Lead, US Defense UAS · Remote · Shearwater Aerospace","url":"https://www.dronejobs.app/jobs/shearwater-aerospace-business-development-lead-us-defense-uas","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https://www.dronejobs.app/jobs/shearwater-aerospace-business-development-lead-us-defense-uas#breadcrumb"},"isPartOf":{"@id":"https://www.dronejobs.app/#website"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https://www.dronejobs.app/jobs/shearwater-aerospace-business-development-lead-us-defense-uas"]}]},{"@id":"https://www.dronejobs.app/#identity","@type":"Organization","description":"Connecting the world's best drone pilots with top-tier companies. The future of flight is here.","name":"DroneJobs","url":"https://www.dronejobs.app"},{"@id":"https://www.dronejobs.app/jobs/shearwater-aerospace-business-development-lead-us-defense-uas#job-posting","@type":"JobPosting","datePosted":"2026-09-27T23:56:30.000000Z","description":"\u003Cp>A hands-on, field-based business development role. You make the calls, take the trips, and run the meetings.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Cem>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.\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Company:\u003C/strong> Shearwater Aerospace (Montreal, QC)\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Location:\u003C/strong> United States, remote, living close to a defense UAS ecosystem\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Reports to:\u003C/strong> CEO. Works day to day with the CTO on product feedback.\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Type:\u003C/strong> Full-time (contract-to-hire acceptable, see note)\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Travel:\u003C/strong> 30–50% (US, with travel to Canada: test ranges, operator sites, defense UAS events)\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Ch2>Why this role exists\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>Smart 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.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>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).\u003C/p>\n\u003Ch2>Who you'll work with\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>Defense services contractors and operators-for-hire (ISR, range support, flight test crews)\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Military and military-adjacent UAS units and their support ecosystem\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Ops managers and mission planners inside those organizations\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Ch2>What you'll own\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Market map and field access (end-to-end)\u003C/strong>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>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\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>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\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Own the full loop: source, contact, follow up, schedule, travel. Founders join the conversations; you generate them\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Field engagement and evaluations\u003C/strong>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>Run discovery conversations, solo or with founders, using our interview guide: current workflow, tools in use, what breaks, what it costs, in their words\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>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\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Represent Shearwater at defense UAS events, ranges, and exercises; be the person operators recognize and trust\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Learning capture\u003C/strong>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>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\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Maintain contact and organization records with discipline: every interaction tracked, every follow-up kept\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Secure return engagements; an operator who comes back is our strongest signal\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Flag patterns weekly: pains heard repeatedly, workflow surprises, competing tools, requested capabilities\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Ch2>First 90 days — explicit success criteria\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>By day 30: the market map and the plan to work it\u003C/strong> — 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\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>30 conversations\u003C/strong> with target operators; founders present in at least 15\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Written evidence per conversation\u003C/strong> in the shared repo, in the operator's own words\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Top 3 pain hypotheses validated or killed\u003C/strong>, with named sources\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>10 operators agree to a second conversation or evaluation\u003C/strong>\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Cp>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\u003C/p>\n\u003Ch2>Career path\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>Market 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.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Phase 1 — Field discovery (roughly 1–2 quarters).\u003C/strong> The mandate above. Every operator relationship you build is yours to keep\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Phase 2 — Commercial ownership.\u003C/strong> When operators start pulling, you own those relationships through evaluation, adoption, and early revenue\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>The transition is evidence-triggered, not calendar-triggered:\u003C/strong> 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.\u003C/p>\n\u003Ch2>Must-haves\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>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\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>An existing network in the US defense UAS community that you can start working in week one\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Day-one fluency: you know the acronyms, the culture, and who to call. We cannot ramp you\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>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)\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Comfortable with rejection, follow-up discipline, and meticulous contact tracking\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Willing and able to travel across the US and to Canada; US Person\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Writes clearly and fast; your notes are our product input\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Ch2>Nice-to-haves\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>BVLOS operational experience or CONOPS/waiver work\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Familiarity with GCS tooling (Mission Planner, QGC, UgCS) and the planning workflow around them\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Prior customer discovery, capture analysis, field research, or FSR (Field Service Representative) experience\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Existing relationships at test ranges or with defense services primes' flight test orgs\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Prior capture, business development, or defense sales experience — a plus, but hustle and network matter more\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>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\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>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\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Ch2>Who won't fit\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>You have never worked directly with UAS operators, whether flying alongside them or selling to them\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>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\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Part-time consultants; this is a full-contact, on-the-road job\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>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\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Ch2>How we'll hire\u003C/h2>\n\u003Col>\n\u003Cli>Intro call with the founders (fit, background, your network)\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>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\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Deep-dive with both founders, including a mock discovery conversation\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>References from operators you have flown with, supported, or sold to, not managers\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ol>\n\u003Ch2>Compensation\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>USD $130,000–$170,000 base depending on network depth and proven selling record, plus meaningful early-stage equity\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Commission on closed business — target 2–5%, structure agreed before you start\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Full travel expenses covered\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Note: a 3–6 month contract-to-hire structure is on the table for candidates who prefer to de-risk mutually\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Ch2>Reporting and structure\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>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\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Weekly sync with both founders: the CEO on targets, field schedule, and pipeline; the CTO on patterns and product implications. Async raw notes continuously\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Works alongside our business operations function, not under it\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>","directApply":false,"jobLocationType":"TELECOMMUTE","title":"Business Development Lead, US Defense UAS","validThrough":"2026-12-26T23:56:30.000Z","applicantLocationRequirements":{"@type":"Country","name":"US"},"baseSalary":{"@type":"MonetaryAmount","currency":"USD","value":{"@type":"QuantitativeValue","minValue":130000,"maxValue":170000,"unitText":"YEAR"}},"employmentType":["FULL_TIME"],"hiringOrganization":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Shearwater Aerospace","logo":"https://assets.jobbb.io/logos/01m2g0vax52g3pv2at4epymjt2_1789391645.png","url":"https://www.dronejobs.app/"},"mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https://www.dronejobs.app/jobs/shearwater-aerospace-business-development-lead-us-defense-uas#webpage"}},{"@id":"https://www.dronejobs.app/jobs/shearwater-aerospace-business-development-lead-us-defense-uas#breadcrumb","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","name":"Home","item":"https://www.dronejobs.app","position":1},{"@type":"ListItem","name":"Jobs","item":"https://www.dronejobs.app/jobs","position":2},{"@type":"ListItem","name":"Business Development Lead, US Defense UAS","position":3}]}]} ``` ## Sitemap See the full [sitemap](https://www.dronejobs.app/sitemap.md) for all pages.