Director of Business Development

Job Details

Job Location:

Apium - San Diego, CA 92121
Salary Range: $ - $ Salary Position Summary

Apium Swarm Robotics (ASR) is revolutionizing swarm autonomy software for air, surface, undersea, and ground vehicles operating across dual-use commercial and defense environments. Our systems are deployed on real platforms, tested in the field, and delivered to customers operating in complex, uncertain, and security-critical conditions. We do not build research prototypes or slideware. Our software is integrated into real vehicles, tested in the field, and delivered to customers who depend on operational reliability, speed of execution, and mission relevance.

We prioritize performance over hype. ASR systems represent the next phase in autonomy: collaborative swarming. These are not like pre-programmed drones for light shows. We are creating real-time cooperative management that lets one operator control dozens to hundreds of vehicles in real-time with the ease of controlling a single vehicle. As such, this role requires comfort with responsibility, ambiguity, and operational accountability.

ASR seeks a Director of Business Development to own and scale our federal growth function. This is a senior leadership role with end-to-end accountability for ASR’s defense and government revenue strategy — from target customer selection through capture, contract award, and program transition. You will define how ASR competes for and wins work across DoD, federal civilian, and allied international markets, and you will be a senior voice in the room when ASR’s leadership team makes decisions about product roadmap, pricing, partnerships, and capital allocation.

You will own ASR’s senior-level customer relationships across program executive officers, acquisition leadership, flag officers, and senior civilian decision-makers. You will define and execute capture strategy across RFIs, RFPs, OTAs, SBIR/STTR, BAAs, IDIQs, and international vehicles — owning win themes, pricing strategy, competitive positioning, and the full pursuit decision on which opportunities ASR commits resources to and which it walks away from.

You will be ASR’s senior external face to the defense ecosystem — delivering executive-level briefings to senior military and government audiences, representing ASR at industry conferences and partner forums, and shaping ASR’s positioning in a competitive autonomy market. You will partner with engineering and product leadership to translate customer demand signal into roadmap priorities, and with finance and contracts to structure deals that protect margin and program execution.

Travel up to 50% is expected, including domestic travel to customer sites, partner locations, and field exercises, plus occasional international travel in support of allied government engagements. This position is an individual contributor at the director level today, with an explicit pathway to grow the business development organization as ASR scales. You will be expected to define the future structure of the BD function, build the hiring plan, and personally execute the work in the meantime.

The right candidate is comfortable carrying a quota personally while simultaneously laying the foundation — process, playbooks, capture infrastructure, partner agreements — that the next several hires will inherit.

• Define and own ASR’s federal capture strategy, including target customer identification, pursuit prioritization, and bid/no-bid decisions on incoming opportunities
• Own ASR’s senior customer relationships across program offices, acquisition organizations, operational commands, and prime contractor partners; serve as the executive sponsor for top-tier accounts
• Lead capture…