About the roleUFORCE is looking for a Head of Sales, USAF & Commercial to build two distinct markets for our systems: the U.S. Air Force and commercial critical maritime infrastructure.
You'll turn Air Force mission priorities into funded opportunities, contract awards, and sustained operational use. That means building trusted relationships with operators, requirements owners, acquisition leaders, and partners-and opening maritime use cases that customers may not yet have considered, from coastal installation defense and island logistics to maritime domain awareness and surface targets for training.
In parallel, you'll build our commercial go-to-market for offshore energy, offshore wind, subsea cables and pipelines, and ports and terminals. You'll identify the buyers, establish a compelling business case, shape commercial offers, and secure the first reference customers.
This role requires the judgment to run both markets with discipline: adapting to different buying cycles and contracting models, allocating effort based on opportunity quality, and growing commercial revenue without fragmenting the defense product roadmap. Success means more than winning contracts-it means customers adopting our systems and realizing measurable operational and business value.
What you'll do- Deliver growth across both markets. Identify, shape, and capture opportunities toward a target of $20M+ in revenue across USAF and Commercial in your first 18 months, with meaningful contributions from both.
- Build a predictable pipeline. Establish separate stage definitions and evidence requirements for each market, maintain forecasts within B115% accuracy, and pursue a 30%+ win rate on competed bids.
- Make deliberate portfolio choices. Review investment and time allocation across the two markets each quarter, making clear decisions about where to invest, hold, or decline.
- Build durable Air Force relationships. Develop access across operators, mission planners, major commands, SAF/AQ, AFLCMC program offices, AFRL, AFWERX, primes, and key subcontractors.
- Create and validate new mission use cases. Establish at least three Air Force use cases with named operational sponsors, defined mission problems, funding owners, acquisition paths, and capability demonstrations that prove value.
- Turn interest into funded programs. Partner with Government Relations to support at least three requirements through the POM and budget pathway, and move at least two opportunities to obligated funds within execution-year timelines.
- Expand routes to contract. Position UFORCE on at least three relevant acquisition vehicles or channels, using pathways such as SBIR/STTR, STRATFI/TACFI, OTAs, IDIQ task orders, direct awards, and prime subcontracts as appropriate.
- Lead disciplined capture and proposals. Build pursuit strategies, customer-backed win themes, competitor assessments, teaming plans, and price-to-win inputs. Coordinate compliant proposals with clear ownership, review standards, and executable delivery commitments.
- Open the commercial market. Secure at least two reference customers in critical maritime infrastructure, with signed contracts, quantified customer value, and documented expansion opportunities.
- Build the commercial sales model. Map buying centers and procurement cycles, develop ROI-based business cases, and work cross-functionally to establish pricing and service options such as capital purchase, lease, or monitoring-as-a-service.
- Protect compliance and product focus. Agree export, end-user, configuration, service, and contractual boundaries with Legal, Contracts, Product, and Delivery before making offers. Ensure commercial requests enter the roadmap through an agreed process.
- Stay accountable through adoption. Track post-award use, readiness effects, commercial operating value, and delivery risks to support sustained adoption and follow-on business. Coordinate shared accounts and joint pursuits with other service sales leaders and the Head of DHS & Federal Sales.
Required Skills- Demonstrated success winning meaningful revenue through complex sales and business development, with clear evidence of your personal contribution from opportunity shaping through award.
- Recent, relevant Air Force customer experience and the ability to build trusted relationships with operators, requirements owners, major command staff, acquisition decision-makers, and industry partners.
- Commercial sales credibility in critical maritime infrastructure, including an understanding of offshore energy, wind, subsea infrastructure, or port operations and how those customers buy.
- Ability to build commercial business cases around return on investment, downtime avoided, operating costs, insurance and regulatory exposure, and total cost of ownership.
- Experience creating demand where no written requirement exists: identifying the customer problem, developing sponsor support, and building a credible path to purchase.
- Strong understanding of defense funding-from operational need through POM, budgeting, appropriations, obligation, and execution-including prototype-to-transition funding.
- Fluency in federal acquisition pathways, including FAR-based procurement and alternatives such as SBIR/STTR, STRATFI/TACFI, OTAs, CSOs, BAAs, and IDIQ task orders.
- Disciplined capture and proposal leadership, including qualification gates, win themes, competitor analysis, price-to-win, requirements traceability, and cross-functional execution.
- Strong pipeline management and forecasting skills, with evidence-based qualification, clear next actions, and the ability to manage different government and commercial sales cycles.
- Sound judgment on ethics, organizational conflicts of interest, export controls, end-user restrictions, and when to involve Legal and Contracts.
- Ability to balance market opportunities against product and delivery capacity, influence cross-functional teams, and remain engaged through customer adoption and measurable outcomes.
Nice to have- Experience selling maritime, unmanned surface, or related defense and dual-use systems.
- Established relationships across SAF/AQ, AFLCMC, AFRL, AFWERX, PACAF, ACC, AFSOC, AMC, or Global Strike.
- Experience transitioning Air Force innovation funding into sustained program or operational funding.
- Experience opening a commercial market from a standing start and developing reference customers.
- Experience structuring capital purchase, lease, or managed-service offers, including service levels, liability, insurance, and support assumptions.
- Experience managing both government and commercial sales portfolios while protecting a shared product roadmap.
- A track record of translating post-award adoption and customer results into repeat business, expansion, and reference cases.
