Director of Finance

Job description

### **Director of Finance** **Company:** Defense-technology company (name shared under NDA) **Reports To:** Co-Founder **Function:** Finance **Location:** Open, including remote **Travel:** To Las Vegas and Virginia as needed, on short notice **Compensation:** $185,000 to $235,000 base, plus bonus and equity *Confidential Search · Defense Technology* *Confidential search. The hiring company's identity and full role details are shared with candidates under NDA.* --- ### **About the Role** This is a **rapidly growing defense-technology company with a physical hardware business** and a growing book of government contract work. Day-to-day financial management is **already outsourced** and a CPA is in place, so this is not a back-office hire. This seat drives **financial strategy, long-range planning, budgeting, and pricing.** Leadership describes it as one of the most important hires the company will make this year. The immediate mandate is **building the model against the work already won**, so the company can see its peaks and valleys coming and prepare for them rather than react. The title is **Director of Finance rather than CFO, deliberately.** Leadership is not looking to hire a sitting CFO. The intent is to bring in someone strong, see how they work, and grow the seat with them. ### **Responsibilities** - Build and own the financial model against the contract backlog, and turn it into decisions leadership can act on. - Drive long-range planning and budgeting for a business scaling quickly on hardware. - Own pricing so that margins hold up, and find the margin that is currently leaking. - Manage working capital through long hardware lead times and government payment timing. - Anticipate cash peaks and valleys and get ahead of them. - Act as a genuine thought partner to the founders on business strategy, not only on the numbers. - Direct the outsourced accounting function and the CPA relationship rather than doing that work. ### **Requirements** ### **Must-Haves** - **Defense or government contracting finance fluency.** Knows what a contract modification does to the books, and how award, invoice, and payment are three separate events with three different effects. This is the one thing the company will not teach. - A **strategy and planning** background rather than a controllership one. Accounts payable and receivable, close, and day-to-day accounting are handled elsewhere. - Experience in a **hardware business**, where inventory, lead times, and working capital drive the cash picture. - A point of view on the business, and the willingness to state it in the room. - Comfort operating as the finance function in a fast-growing company rather than inside an established department. - **No minimum years of experience and no degree requirement.** In practice, defense and finance experience tend to come together around eight years. Most candidates in this market carry an MBA or a graduate finance degree, and the two are treated as equivalent. ### **Nice-to-Haves** - Director of Finance, Head of Finance, VP Finance, or a senior financial planning and analysis lead at a growth-stage defense or national-security company, especially one with a hardware component. - Government contracting finance at a prime or mid-tier defense manufacturer. - Investment banking or private equity with aerospace, defense, or industrials coverage, plus real operating experience afterward. ### **Not a Fit** - **Sitting CFOs.** The company is deliberately hiring at Director level with room to grow. - **Controller and CPA-centric profiles.** The back office is outsourced and stays that way. - Commercial or software financial planning backgrounds with no government contract exposure. ### **Process** - This is a **confidential search.** An **NDA is required before the company's identity and full role details are shared.** We screen for interest at a high level first, then read candidates in once an NDA is in place. - Expect a multi-stage process. This is a senior hire and the company has been explicit that it will not be decided in two conversations.