Infrastructure Lead, DoD / DoW

Job description

**About the Company** Armada is the hyperscaler for the edge, delivering modular AI infrastructure from first deployment to AI factory with speed, scale and sovereignty. Named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies and to the CNBC Disruptor 50, Armada’s solutions are deployed in over 60 countries globally for organizations ranging from energy to defense. With nearly $500 million in funding to date, Armada is backed by leading investors including Founders Fund, Lux, BlackRock and Microsoft (M12), alongside strategic partnerships with Microsoft, Dell, Palantir, NVIDIA, SpaceX, and Skydio. We are building the infrastructure layer for sovereign and edge AI - rugged, deployable compute for customers that cannot rely on centralized cloud. Working at Armada means taking ownership, driving autonomy, and delivering impact. You’ll tackle challenges that haven’t been solved before and help build something transformative from the ground up. What you do here will not only define your career but help further Armada’s mission to bridge the digital divide for customers around the world. **About the Role** Armada is seeking an Infrastructure Lead to own day-to-day Department of Defense (DoD)/Department of War (DoW) infrastructure workstreams and to serve as a primary technical voice on federal capture. This is a senior individual contributor role. You will not manage a team on day one. You will influence product, manufacturing, deployment, capture, and customer stakeholders across every DoD/DoW opportunity and awarded program you touch. The role is split evenly between capture and delivery. On the capture side, you engage defense and government customers, shape technical responses to RFIs and RFPs, and translate mission and installation requirements into solution architectures Armada can actually build and field. On the delivery side, you drive Statement of Work (SOW) execution from award through site readiness, production, deployment, integration, and handover with accountability for schedule, technical performance, risk, and change control. You will work across Armada's Federal infrastructure portfolio, including Galleon ruggedized Modular Data Centers (MDCs), Leviathan megawatt-scale AI-factory form factors, and the Armada Platform. The work sits at the intersection of hardware, power and cooling, connectivity, secure edge software, and the compliance regimes that govern warfighter and installation environments: disconnected operations, classified and air-gapped workloads, zero trust, and Authority to Operate. This is a hands-on, high-expectation role in a fast-growing, mission-critical environment. You will determine your own methods on new assignments, exercise judgment across ambiguous and sensitive requirements, and make decisions with imperfect information. You are the person who makes sure what we propose to the Department can be manufactured, transported, installed, commissioned, and sustained. **Location.** United States (Remote) with expected travel to the Washington, D.C., customer sites, Armada offices, fabrication partners, and deployment locations. **What You'll Do (Key Responsibilities)** **DoD / DoW workstream ownership** - Own day-to-day execution of assigned DoD/DoW infrastructure workstreams, from early customer engagement through deployment and sustainment. - Establish operating rhythms, KPIs, risk registers, and accountability mechanisms so federal infrastructure delivery is predictable, not reactive. - Translate mission requirements into scalable product and deployment patterns. - Balance classified and unclassified customer needs while protecting a unified core product architecture across Galleon, Leviathan, and the Armada Platform. **RFI / RFP technical engagement** - Lead technical engagement on DoD/DoW RFIs, RFPs, and similar proposals for infrastructure and edge-compute opportunities. - Shape technical volumes, compliance matrices, bases of estimate, and solution narratives with Capture, Federal Product, Customer Engineering, and Legal. - Conduct customer technical exchanges, site surveys, and capability briefings. Translate warfighter, installation, and program-office problems into specific, actionable requirements. - Advise capture and go-to-market teams on what Armada can commit to: form factor, power and cooling envelope, deployment timeline, accreditation path, and manufacturing readiness. - Represent Armada as a trusted technical advisor to government technical evaluators, program managers, and mission owners. **SOW and Program Execution** - Own SOW execution on awarded infrastructure efforts: scope, integrated schedule, technical performance, risk, issue, and change control. - Build and run the delivery cadence to include program reviews, working groups, customer status, and internal execution forums. - Partner with Finance, Legal, and Supply Chain on contract execution, delivery commitments, CLIN/SLIN traceability, and change management. - Drive integrated plans across engineering, manufacturing, logistics, and field deployment so cost, schedule, and technical performance stay in balance as customer priorities move. - Proactively surface execution risk, long-lead constraints, and critical-path slips, and drive mitigation rather than report them. - Support transition from capture assumptions to an executable baseline at award, including site conditions, interface control, and acceptance criteria. **Infrastructure, manufacturing, and site delivery** - Own the infrastructure thread from site due diligence and design review through fabrication, transport, installation, integration, and commissioning for Galleon and Leviathan deployments in defense environments. - Partner with Form Factors, manufacturing, and supply chain on production readiness: factory strategy, throughput, quality, and long-lead items such as power, cooling, steel, switchgear, and IT infrastructure. - Validate that proposed designs are manufacturable, transportable, and installable against real site constraints — crane and access, laydown, sequencing, tolerances, and fit-up — before they are locked into a proposal or an issued-for-construction package. - Build repeatable deployment playbooks and methods of procedure so defense sites execute against a productized pattern, not a one-off plan. - Coordinate civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, ICT, and IT interfaces with fabricators, general contractors, and government public-works stakeholders. - Feed field lessons — constructability, quality escapes, commissioning gaps — back into product design and future proposals. **Security, compliance, and mission assurance** - Partner with Security and Compliance on DoD security requirements, NIST, RMF, zero trust, and classified or air-gapped deployment models. - Guide the infrastructure and accreditation features needed to support Authority to Operate and government compliance and keep proposal language consistent with what the platform can evidence. - Drive secure edge-to-cloud and disconnected, intermittent, and limited (DIL) operating concepts for defense customers who cannot rely on centralized cloud. - Ensure delivery artifacts including as-builts, test and acceptance packages, configuration baselines, and sustainment handoff meet mission-assurance expectations. **Required Qualifications** - U.S. citizenship and an active U.S. Secret clearance. Must be able to obtain and maintain the clearance required by assigned programs. - 12+ years of experience in infrastructure, data center, critical facilities, hardware program, or technical program roles. - 5+ years supporting U.S. Government or Defense customers (DoD/DoW, Intelligence Community, or federal civilian agencies), including direct customer engagement. - Demonstrated ownership of technical RFI/RFP responses, proposals, or customer technical evaluations for infrastructure, data center, or mission-critical systems. - Demonstrated SOW or contract execution experience: integrated schedule, risk and change control, and delivery against government acceptance criteria. - Ability to translate defense customer problems into specific, actionable requirements and into commitments engineering and manufacturing can execute. - Excellent written and verbal communication with technical, operational, contracting, and senior government audiences. **Preferred Qualifications** - Active TS/SCI clearance. - Direct experience with modular or prefabricated data centers, edge compute, or expeditionary infrastructure in defense, intelligence, or austere environments. - Experience with DoD acquisition and contracting artifacts: SOW, CDRL/SDRL, RFI/RFP technical volumes, bases of estimate, and integrated master schedules. - Familiarity with RMF, ATO, ICD 503, NIST 800-53, zero trust, IL4/IL5/IL6, or classified deployment models. - Experience with disconnected, intermittent, and limited operations, sovereign or air-gapped AI infrastructure, or installation energy and power constraints. - Prior military, intelligence, or government service, or experience as a program manager, TPM, capture lead, or customer engineer on a defense hardware program. **Citizenship Requirements** For select roles, due to the nature of our clientele and the technologies involved, there may be specific nationality or citizenship indicated in the required qualifications section. These roles may involve access to sensitive information that is subject to export control regulations or other legal restrictions. In such cases, employment offers will be contingent upon your ability to comply with these requirements. **Compensation & Benefits** For U.S. Based candidates: To ensure fairness and transparency, the *starting*base salary range for this role for candidates in the U.S. are listed, varying based on location experience, skills, and qualifications. In addition to base salary, this role will also be offered equity and subsidized benefits *(details available upon request)*. We use a geographic pay structure based on cost-of-labor markets. - **Tier 1 (e.g., SF Bay Area, NYC, Seattle):** $187,500 - $234,370 - **Tier 2 (most U.S. metro areas):** $163,040 - $203,800 - **Tier 3 (other cities):** $154,890- $193,610 Final compensation will be determined by experience, scope, and level, and may vary from the posted range. **Benefits** - Competitive base salary and equity - Medical, dental, and vision (subsidized) - HSA, FSA, and dependent-care FSA - 401(k) and Roth 401(k) - Unlimited PTO - 14 paid company holidays Armada is an equal opportunity employer. U.S. citizenship and an active Secret clearance are required. #LI-SM2 #LI-Remote Compensation $163,040—$203,800 USD **You're a Great Fit if You're** - A go-getter with a growth mindset. You're intellectually curious, have strong business acumen, and actively seek opportunities to build relevant skills and knowledge - A detail-oriented problem-solver. You can independently gather inform