Missions Operation Manager

Summary:

Bridge Defense is seeking a full-time Mission Operations Manager to lead customer engagements across our product and engineering portfolio, supporting customers across the Department of War.

The Mission Operations Manager is the program lead on an engagement, paired with a Tech Lead and supported by a team of engineers. The Tech Lead owns whether the system was built right. You own whether the mission improved.

That distinction is the job. Every government program carries dependencies we do not control. Your job is to find the way through.

The work starts with getting to the truth of what the customer actually does, which is rarely what the requirement says. Those answers exist, in the data and in the people doing the work. This role goes and finds them.

• The outcome. You are who we look to for the success of your engagement.
• The problem definition. Establishing what the real problem is, validating it against evidence rather than assumption, and adapting the execution when the evidence demands it.
• The relationship. Trust with end users, program leadership, technical stakeholders, and the acquisition and contracting personnel who determine whether good work ever reaches the field.
• The team’s priorities, in partnership with the Tech Lead, who owns the technical approach.

• Understand the customer’s mission, workflows, pain points, acquisition process, and previous attempts to solve the problem
• Establish ground truth on how a system or workflow is actually used. Answer questions from data and direct engagement
• Translate customer outcomes into scoped and prioritized work, distinguishing genuine mission requirements from distractions, individual preferences, and broader noise
• Work blockers to resolution. Clear the path rather than document the delay
• Redirect the effort when the evidence says the plan is wrong, and make that case credibly to both the customer and the team
• Lead internal and external teams within approved authorities and constraints to deliver and sustain capability in operational environments
• Bring customer and field lessons back to product and engineering to shape what we build and how we deliver it
• Manage difficult conversations with tact, confidence, and transparency

• Demonstrated ownership of complex technical programs or deployments, with accountability for the outcome and not only the schedule. We weigh what you have owned and what changed because of it more heavily than years of experience
• Fluency working directly with data. Faced with an ambiguous situation, you know what question to ask and what data would answer it.
• Product judgment, demonstrated by a track record of deciding what should be built and what should not
• A record of resolving obstacles that were outside your formal control
• Comfort working in dynamic, high-stakes environments with tight timelines and shifting requirements
• Understanding of government acquisition, budgeting, and contracting, or the demonstrated ability to come up to speed on it quickly
• Ability to work on-site with government users, including in classified or secure environments
• Active Secret security clearance at the time of hire, with the ability to obtain and maintain TS/SCI

• Hands-on experience with Palantir Foundry or a comparable enterprise data platform, including working directly in its analytical and application-building tools
• Experience in a deployment strategist, engagement manager, forward deployed, or mission success role at a technology company
• Prior military service, prior government service, or experience delivering to a government customer
• Familiarity with software development environments and Dev Sec Ops …