Program Manager - Hacking for Defense

Run the most consequential classroom in national security

Hacking for Defense® started as a course at Stanford University and became one of the most recognized brands in defense innovation: real military problems, taught at more than 60 universities, worked by the sharpest university students in the country, using the methods that built Silicon Valley. Some of those student teams became companies and some now field capabilities to the warfighter. 

BMNT runs H4D® for DIU’s Innovation with Academia (IWA) portfolio, and we need the right person to run it day to day. You will find impactful problems to be worked on during a semester at elite universities, get commitments from government problem sponsors, keep dozens of educators and mission partners moving in the right direction, and then make sure the best work doesn’t die at a demo day. This is not program administration. This is operating the pipeline between the next generation of founders and the missions that need them.

What you’ll actually do:

• Own the client. Be the trusted, daily interface to DIU’s IWA Program Director and Department of War counterparts. Their priorities become your operating plan. 
• Hunt problems. Lead global sourcing operations that turn real needs from bases, combatant commands, and intelligence agencies into actionable problems that a university student team can attack in a semester. 
• Lead the ecosystem. Coordinate the work of universities, educators, student teams, and military mission partners; our nonprofit partner the Common Mission Project; and contractor teams.
• Make outcomes real. Drive what happens after the H4D semester, connecting student outputs to prototyping, lead the DIU Commercialization Fellowship post-course incubator, and build the transition pathways that turn a good final briefing into a funded next step.
• Run the business. Own deliverables, schedules, metrics (sponsor interviews, mission partner conversion, research translation, funding intake), program economics, and the growth strategy that expands the portfolio.
• Grow the team. Supervise and coach project leads and innovation analysts and elevate our tradecraft.

Who thrives in this seat:

• You’ve led complex, multi-stakeholder programs for a decade or more, including at least five years inside or alongside the defense innovation ecosystem (DIU, NSIN, DARPA, SOFWERX, national labs, or the services themselves).
• You can brief a combatant command in the morning and win over faculty in the afternoon, and you genuinely like doing both. 
• You speak Lean Startup and the Mission Model Canvas as a working language.
• You’re diplomatic enough for a landscape of clients, universities, nonprofits, and contractors; and you’re entrepreneurial enough to act in the face of uncertainty.
• U.S. citizenship required. Occasional travel: DC metro, around the country, and sometimes internationally.

Why BMNT

We’re the 40-person company that has spent a decade building the two halves of federal innovation that don’t get built on their own, proving that commercial innovation methods work in national security. Our founder led the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force and created Hacking for Defense and the Innovation Pipeline®. We have moved real technology, from ocean sensors to edge AI, into operational hands, and we just helped launch USSOCOM’s newest acquisition consortium. We’re a small company with few layers, a global mission, and the H4D brand. This is the rare job where “what do you do?” has an incredible answer at your next reunion.

The details

• Compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, level, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience; the range for this DC-based role is $155,000-200,000 plus benefits. 
• BMNT is a certified SDVOSB and an equal opportunity employer. 

Location: This is a hybrid position within commuting distance to our Arlington, VA office with the expectation of being in the office three days per week and sometimes more often based on customer needs. Occasional travel required within the DC metro area, around the US and internationally.  

What success looks like in year one

• DIU’s IWA Program Director and government problem sponsors give the portfolio their highest marks.
• Every H4D course, every semester, launches with its full slate of validated, high-quality problems, delivered on time.
• H4D, Capstone, and the DIU Commercialization Fellowship run as one connected pipeline, and post-course transitions are happening, not just planned.
• Your project leads and analysts are visibly better at this craft than when the year started.