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About Istari
Istari Digital builds the connective tissue for defense acquisition. Our platform lets engineering models, simulations, and digital threads move securely across primes, suppliers, and government program offices, so a system can be tested, trusted, and fielded in months rather than years. We work at the center of some of the hardest problems in defense acquisition: getting the right model, to the right person, at the right classification, at the right time. We are a small, senior team, and every hire changes what the company can do next.
The role:
A Deployment Strategist at Istari is the single accountable owner of a customer program's outcome. You will embed with a small team of forward deployed engineers on one flagship program, or a small set of lighter engagements, and you will decide what matters: which problems the team attacks and in what order, what each demonstration, technical interchange, or test event has to prove, and how the deployment becomes something the customer cannot imagine operating without. Some days that means a working session with a prime's chief engineer. Other days it means briefing a program executive on why a digital thread changes their schedule risk, or reading the room after a review board and knowing exactly which conversation needs to happen next.
On our largest federal programs, you also carry the formal Program Manager designation as contract key personnel. You are the government program office's day-to-day peer, and your name is on every deliverable commitment we make. You will have support from a shared Program Operations team that helps to assemble reports, format deliverables, and work the submission machinery behind you - but you answer for all of it. Your hours go to the outcome and to what the program becomes next, not to the tracker.
You are not the primary builder here; we hire Forward Deployed Engineers for that, and your job is never to stand between them and the customer. You do need enough technical range that engineers trust your judgment and customers trust your answers. There is no fixed path into this role and no single background that produces a great Deployment Strategist. We are looking for people who would rather own the result than the process, and the more ownership you take, the more you will be given.
What you'll do

• Own the outcome of a program end to end: define what success means, choose the problems worth solving and the order to solve them in, and set what each milestone has to prove.
• Embed with government and industry customers to understand their mission, their constraints, and their politics, and build relationships from end users to program executives that make a deployment durable.
• Serve as named Program Manager on major federal programs: carry the program narrative through status reports, technical interchange meetings, and formal review boards, and stand accountable for every contract commitment.
• Set direction and priorities for a small Forward Deployed Engineering team without intermediating between engineers and users, and protect their time from everything that is not the work.
• Own the growth thesis: option years, follow-ons, and expansions grow out of delivered outcomes, and they are your responsibility to shape from inside the relationship.
• Feed what you learn in the field back into product and engineering, so the platform gets better for every customer, not just the one in front of you.
• Work day-to-day at or travel to customer sites, test events, hackathons, and program milestones as needed, typically domestic.

Qualifications / Who thrives in this role
We hire for judgment, curiosity, and a bias toward action more than for a specific degree or years of experience. That said, people who do well in this role tend to share a few things:

• A track record of owning an outcome with no formal authority over the people delivering it, and finding that energizing rather than alarming.
• Insider fluency in the following customer domain... the kind that comes from having lived it, along with a clear view of what is broken in how that world works today.

Domain: program execution inside a large, multi-site defense prime - mission systems moving through formal design gates where interface documents bind companies together, special-mission aircraft conversion and the certification evidence it demands at home and abroad, and defense production scaling under national urgency

• Technical conversancy across modeling and simulation, MBSE, digital threads, software development, and/or agentic design: enough to interrogate an engineering claim and be credible doing it, not necessarily enough to build it yourself.
• Product sense, because this role sits closer to product management than to project management: knowing what to build next and what not to build at all, and telling the difference between a request that serves one user and a capability that belongs in the platform.
• The range to brief a program executive in the morning and pair with an engineer in the afternoon.
• An instinct for reading rooms and organizational dynamics, because adoption is won in the customer's org chart as much as in the software.
• Comfort operating with incomplete information and shifting requirements, and the initiative to define next steps without being told.

Preferred, not required

• Highly desired: Experience in a forward deployed, deployment strategist, or field delivery role at a technology or defense company.
• A prior key personnel Program Manager designation on a DoD or NASA contract, or time inside a government program office, uniformed or civilian.
• Working familiarity with government contracting mechanics: deliverable cadences, milestone reviews, option years, and what a contracting officer cares about.
• A track record of converting delivery into growth: an option year exercised, an expansion won, a pilot that became a program of record.
• Eligibility to obtain and hold a U.S. security clearance, given the classified and controlled environments this role supports.

Why Istari
You will work directly with the executives and engineers building the company, not through layers of process. You will see your work reach real programs and real missions quickly - the outcomes you own here end in test events and fielded systems, not slide decks - and you will have room to shape a role that does not yet have a fixed definition. This is a small team solving a problem that matters, and we are looking for people who want to build the next chapter of it with us.
$140,000 - $220,000 a year
The anticipated compensation range for this position may vary based on experience, skills, qualifications, location, and business needs. In addition to base salary, this role may be eligible for bonuses, equity, and a comprehensive benefits package.
We've built a team of what we call Wizards -- people who bring depth in their domain and range across others, who are collaborative without being deferential, and who genuinely care about what we're building. We celebrate individual contributions, give feedback early and often, and argue about ideas so we can execute together.
There's no room here for hierarchy for its own sake, or for busywork that doesn't move the mission. We are outcomes-driven, and we hold each other to a high standard - with genuine respect for each person's expertise and wellbeing.
Focus is rewarded. Finish is remembered.
Facts are friendly. Even when they are not fun.
Fellowship is fundamental. Make others successful.
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.