The posting
Government Programs & Special Projects
About Atomic Industries
Atomic Industries is building the fastest and most efficient path from part design to scaled production. We combine software, advanced mold design and manufacturing, and domestic production infrastructure to manufacture production-grade components for demanding commercial and government customers.
We are looking for an entrepreneurial operator to help build Atomic's government and defense business. This is not a traditional policy, lobbying, or business-development role. The job is to identify where government and defense programs need parts, determine whether Atomic can manufacture them, and move those opportunities from initial discovery into executable production programs.
The Role
The Government Programs & Special Projects lead will work across the Department of Defense, military services, program offices, government research and acquisition organizations, defense primes, and the broader industrial base.
At its simplest, the role is a continuous search for answers to two questions:
- Who needs parts?
- Can Atomic make them?
The person in this role will uncover part requirements, obtain the technical information needed to evaluate them, identify the relevant decision-makers and funding pathways, and coordinate internally to turn promising needs into production opportunities.
This role reports directly to company leadership and will work closely with engineering, manufacturing, partnerships, legal, and operations.
What You'll Do
Identify Government Production Opportunities
- Develop a systematic view of which defense programs, program offices, military branches, primes, and suppliers have urgent or recurring needs for manufactured parts.
- Identify programs of record, sustainment programs, modernization efforts, research initiatives, and supply-chain disruptions where Atomic may be able to help.
- Build relationships across organizations including Acquisition and Sustainment, Research and Engineering, the individual military services, program executive offices, depots, laboratories, and defense primes.
- Track specific part needs rather than focusing only on broad contracts, funding announcements, or high-level relationships.
- Find opportunities involving obsolete suppliers, long lead times, foreign dependencies, tooling constraints, low-volume production, production surges, or fragile supply chains.
Acquire Technical Data and Define the Opportunity
- Work with government organizations, primes, OEMs, and suppliers to obtain technical data packages, CAD files, drawings, specifications, bills of materials, qualification requirements, and historical production information.
- Determine who owns or controls the relevant technical data and what rights or agreements are required for Atomic to use it.
- Help structure NDAs, data-sharing arrangements, evaluation agreements, and other mechanisms that allow Atomic to assess potential programs.
- Translate loosely defined government needs into a clear package that Atomic's engineering and manufacturing teams can evaluate.
- Identify missing information and drive the process required to obtain it.
Convert Needs Into Executable Programs
- Coordinate technical reviews with Atomic's engineering and manufacturing teams.
- Assess whether opportunities fit Atomic's capabilities, economics, timing, materials, quality requirements, and production capacity.
- Develop an initial program structure, including stakeholders, technical requirements, acquisition pathway, qualification process, schedule, funding source, and next actions.
- Move opportunities through evaluation, quoting, prototyping, qualification, contracting, and production.
- Maintain ownership of opportunities across long and sometimes ambiguous government sales cycles.
- Work with primes when they are the most effective path to a program and directly with government customers when appropriate.
Build the Government Opportunity System
- Create and maintain a structured pipeline of government and defense part opportunities.
- Develop repeatable methods for mapping programs to parts, suppliers, technical data, decision-makers, and contracting pathways.
- Establish a clear process for qualifying opportunities and prioritizing Atomic's limited technical and manufacturing resources.
- Track where each opportunity stands, what is blocking it, who owns the next action, and what must happen to advance it.
- Produce concise briefs for leadership covering the opportunity, strategic importance, expected value, technical fit, risks, and recommended next step.
- Help Atomic learn how to navigate government acquisition without allowing process to replace actual commercial and production outcomes.
What Success Looks Like
Within the first several months, you will have:
- Built a prioritized map of government programs, primes, and organizations with meaningful part-production needs.
- Created a pipeline of specific, identifiable parts or part families that Atomic could potentially manufacture.
- Established relationships with the people who control demand, technical data, qualification, and purchasing.
- Obtained technical data packages or equivalent information for multiple qualified opportunities.
- Advanced initial opportunities into technical evaluation, quoting, prototype, or qualification stages.
- Implemented a practical operating system for tracking government opportunities from discovery through production.
Over time, success means creating a repeatable government business in which Atomic consistently finds critical part needs and converts them into profitable, strategically important production programs.
Who You Are
- You are highly resourceful and comfortable operating without a predefined playbook.
- You know how to navigate complex organizations and find the person who actually owns a problem.
- You can move fluidly between senior government officials, program managers, engineers, contracting personnel, prime contractors, and factory teams.
- You focus on concrete outcomes and specific part requirements, not meetings for the sake of meetings.
- You are comfortable working through ambiguity, fragmented information, unclear ownership, and long decision cycles.
- You can understand technical and manufacturing information well enough to recognize what matters and bring the right experts into the conversation.
- You are organized enough to manage a large number of relationships, programs, documents, dependencies, and follow-ups.
- You communicate clearly and can reduce a complicated opportunity into a concise set of facts and actions.
- You have strong judgment about when to pursue an opportunity, when to escalate, and when to walk away.
Relevant Experience
Strong candidates may come from several different backgrounds, including:
- Defense acquisition, program management, logistics, sustainment, or industrial-base roles.
- A military service, program executive office, defense agency, laboratory, depot, or combatant command.
- Business development, strategy, capture, or special projects at a defense prime, OEM, or manufacturing company.
- Government-focused operations at a defense technology startup.
- Manufacturing, supply-chain, or sourcing roles involving government or aerospace programs.
- Consulting or investing experience focused on defense programs and the industrial base.
Direct experience with technical data packages, defense manufacturing, contracting pathways, qualification requirements, or programs of record is highly valuable.
What This Role Is Not
- It is not primarily a lobbying or public-policy role.
- It is not a role focused on pursuing grants without a clear path to production.
- It is not traditional capture management centered only on large solicitations.
- It is not relationship-building disconnected from specific customer needs.
- It is not limited to one branch, agency, acquisition pathway, or class of contract.
The objective is simple: find important part needs, establish whether Atomic can solve them, and do the work required to turn them into production.
