Director, Strategic Partnerships

The Corporate Development team at Anduril has the coolest job in the tech sector - we lead Mergers & Acquisitions activities for the most interesting defense products company in the world, and we create meaningful strategic partnerships with other fast-moving startups and large global corporations.

We are recruiting a Director, Strategic Partnerships. This is not a traditional partnerships role, and we will welcome candidates without significant partnerships experience. This is a deals role, which requires formalizing commercial relationships with other companies in the defense and technology industry. We are not satisfied by press releases and a flowery memorandum of understanding that sounds nice but does not result in concrete action. We build real, in-depth, multi-year deals with tangible responsibilities for both parties, often involving joint R&D investment, go-to-market coordination, and shared economics. This is a hunter, not a farmer. Once these deals are executed, we manage the handoff to the relevant Anduril business line for swift transition into operation.

• You will work with senior Anduril leadership to understand the objectives of a partnership and ruthlessly execute the details. You should be seen as a fair dealer who can get kinetic and will make things happen. You will be successful based on your ability to persuade and lead informally, rather than because of your title or position. Everyone at Anduril is very bright, but you will also have demonstrated evidence of good judgement, perceptiveness, and emotional intelligence.
• You will represent Anduril to the partner organization in the context of the negotiation. You will be expected to be both friendly and charismatic and also to negotiate skillfully on behalf of Anduril’s interests.
• You will quickly come up to speed on a new technical problem and understand the trades that will allow us to reach a deal that accomplishes Anduril’s technical objectives within the scope of what the partner company can reasonably achieve - it will not be uncommon for you to need to negotiate price per kilowatt hour, understand the dynamics behind allocating engineering sprints to the project, or interpret the trade space in the design and performance of diffractive waveguides. This should excite you and you should be hungry to dig in!
• Financial modelling is a component of this job. You should be able to analyze financial forecasts for individual Anduril divisions and develop models to estimate the costs and revenue potential of a successful partnership. You will use this model to negotiate the deal with the counterparty and justify the agreement internally.
• You will work closely with Anduril’s deal lawyers to assemble agreements that accomplish our objectives. You will thoroughly understand why an agreement is drafted in a certain way, but you will also know when it is time to recommend a different path to keep the deal on track. You will have excellent attention to detail.
• You will ensure that once we get the deal done that it is seamlessly transitioned to the right Anduril business unit to operationalize it. You will lead kickoffs between the right working team and the partner, you will develop the process infrastructure to ensure that we get a running start, and you will check in periodically to make sure everything is working.
• We’re not huge on PowerPoint decks, but the slides you produce will be thoughtful, well-researched, and well-formatted for an executive audience.
• You will obsessively take meeting notes, summarize findings and action items, and draft memos for internal and external executives. You will track the progress we made on deals every week and summarize into work products catering to different internal audiences.
• You will learn Anduril’s business top-to-bottom, and regularly interact with colleagues in hardware and software engineering, supply chain & manufacturing, finance, business development, government relations, etc.
• You will manage confidential projects with very sensitive information.

• You have 7+ years of experience in a strategic role at a high-velocity business where you were subjected to constant pressure. Management consulting, investment banking, and business development (under quota) are acceptable examples, but other similarly-demanding roles also work.
• You are humble and hungry; no task is too small or beneath you, and you will bring a just-get-it-done mindset to work every day.
• You are self-driven and relentlessly proactive. You don’t need someone to tell you to “move”. You just move. We’d rather have to tell you to slow down than to speed up.
• You don’t wait on others to solve problems. You proactively step into the gap to offer solutions yourself.
• You have strong analytical aptitude. You intuitively think about problems in terms of numbers and models, and you are able to execute analyses quickly in Excel.
• You are comfortable communicating broadly and having a lot of eyes on your work. This role can at-times require comms to large groups and senior leadership. This should excite you!
• U.S. Person status is required as this position needs to access export-controlled data. Must also be able to obtain and hold a U.S. Secret-level Security Clearance.
• Ability to travel 25 – 40% required. Our partners are global and it is important to spend time with them in-person.

• We're going to get a lot of resumes--and while we love bullet points as much as the next team, we're also looking for someone who can stand out. So tell us something we won't see on your CV. Why you're interested, how you think, what makes you tick--we're not picky, but we are curious. Show us that you're more than a list of accomplishments. Do not be boring.