Baltimore/DC Metro Area (Hybrid) | Full-Time
$180,000-$220,000 base + commission and performance bonus
Position SummaryAs CANDA Solutions continues to scale operations and expand its presence across federal, defense, and international markets, we are seeking a high-performing, strategically disciplined Vice President, Sales to generate new sales, develop new partnerships with Value-Added Resellers (VARs) build a capture management function and create accurate sales forecasting tools.
This role is a critical member of the go-to-market leadership team and will be responsible for transforming CANDA's sales efforts from founder-led into a scalable, repeatable, and high-performing growth engine across domestic and international markets.
This is a player-coach role. In the near term, the VP, Sales will serve as CANDA's primary business sales closer by personally driving opportunity identification, capture execution, and contract wins while simultaneously building a sales infrastructure, processes, and playbooks that will support a growing team over time. As the organization scales, this leader will transition into a team-building and coaching role, recruiting, developing, and managing a high-accountability Sales team aligned to CANDA's growth targets.
The ideal candidate combines strategic architectural thinking with proven hands-on sales execution and a deep domain knowledge and experience with federal contracting, defense, and international sales & business development environments.
This position reports directly to the Chief Operating Officer.
Duties & ResponsibilitiesStrategic & Executive Leadership- Define and execute CANDA's sales strategy aligned to near-and long-term revenue targets.
- Build a structured pipeline across federal, defense, and international sectors.
- Identify, prioritize and close high-value opportunities, partnerships, and markets.
Opportunity Development & Capture Execution - Drive opportunity identification, qualification, capture planning, proposal execution, and contract negotiation as CANDA's primary Sales professional in the near term.
- Build and maintain a robust pipeline of federal, defense, and international opportunities; deliver accurate forecasts with clear visibility into pipeline health, risk, and confidence levels.
- Develop win strategies, teaming arrangements, partner agreements and competitive positioning.
Sales Infrastructure Build Out- Architect and implement capture frameworks, governance models, tools, and processes across the sales lifecycle from opportunity identification through contract award and delivery.
- Develop and implement standardized capture process; contribute to the development of playbooks, qualification standards, proposal frameworks, and objection-handling approaches that will scale with the team.
- Establish disciplined pipeline management, forecasting, and reporting framework.
- Institutionalize win/loss reviews and continuous process improvement to raise organizational win rates over time.
Team Leadership & Development - Develop and implement a competitive sales commission structure to attract & retain top sales talent and provides incentives to achieve and exceed assigned quotas.
- Recruit, mentor, and develop high-performing sales professionals through structured 1:1, deal reviews, and performance coaching as the team is built.
- Build a high-accountability, mission-first culture focused on collaboration, execution discipline, and continuous improvement.
- Identify performance gaps early; implement targeted development plans and maintain consistent standards across the team.
- Support the evolution of CANDA's sales organizational structure and leadership capability as growth milestones are achieved.
Cross-Functional Integration & Operational Alignment- Lead cross-functional alignment across Product, Marketing, Leadership, and Delivery into a unified capture engine.
- Partner with Marketing to drive competitive intelligence, demand generation, and go-to-market messaging aligned to target federal agencies and international clients.
- Ensure clean handoffs to Delivery teams with well-scoped, winnable work that protects client satisfaction and future revenue.
- The VP, Sales will establish and maintain effective partnerships, and closely collaborate with internal leaders, functions, and key employees to achieve operations and financial objectives.
Qualifications- 10+ years of federal, defense, or international sales and capture management experience with measurable, documented win results.
- Experience in national security, defense technology, or federal IT markets with established agencies and partner relationships required.
- Demonstrated track record of winning contracts and building pipelines.
- Proven ability to build and scale sales infrastructure and capture processes in a high-growth and/or early-stage government Software as a Service (SaaS) environment.
- Hands-on CRM proficiency (HubSpot, Salesforce or equivalent) as a core pipeline management and forecasting tool.
- Proven ability to coach, develop, and earn trust with sales professionals, customers, partners and internal cross-functional teams.
- Strong communicator and organizational leader; effective influencing without formal authority in a distributed or non-hierarchical structure.
- CANDA is a fast-paced, high-growth environment that rewards initiative and adaptability; comfort operating with ambiguity is essential as the team and processes are developed.
- Willingness and ability to travel domestically and internationally as required to develop and maintain key client, agency, and partner relationships.
- Located in or able to commute to the Baltimore/DC metro area, preferred.
Preferred Qualifications- Active U.S. security clearance preferred or ability to obtain US security clearance; Top Secret (TS) highly desirable.
- Background in international government contracting or multi-jurisdictional regulatory environments.
- Familiarity with CMMC, ITAR, FAR/DFARS, or other federal and defense compliance frameworks.
- Demonstrated experience implementing or scaling a standardized capture or sales methodology in a growing SaaS company.
- Familiarity with GovCon pricing, teaming strategies, and competitive positioning in the defense and federal IT marketplace.
What We Offer- Dynamic leadership role during significant growth and international expansion for CANDA.
- Opportunity to architect and build CANDA's long-term sales function and go-to-market strategy from the ground up.
- Competitive compensation package: $180,000-$220,000 base with comprehensive commission and performance bonus plan, with accelerators, tied to achievement of individual sales quotas, pipeline accuracy and win outcomes.
- Comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision coverage.
- 401(k) with company match.
- Paid federal holidays (11+1 floating holiday), PTO.
- Flexible and hybrid work opportunities.
- Professional growth as an executive leader with exposure across domestic and international markets.
