Operations - Growth Operations

Job description

GROWTH OPERATIONS Valthos Inc. Valthos is an applied biological intelligence company. We build and deploy software and biological AI systems to safeguard humanity. The same AI architectures that enable self-driving cars, land rockets with precision, and deliver expert-level reasoning are beginning to be deployed in biological design. To stay ahead, we must advance our arsenal of tools to capture and design against real-time sensitivities in nature's evolving mutational landscape. We are a group of mission-driven software engineers from Palantir and applied biological ML engineers from MIT's Broad Institute and DeepMind making the latest advances in computational biology accessible in the real-world for federal and commercial use. Growth Operations at Valthos sits at the intersection of operations and go-to-market strategy. Our customers include federal agencies, national laboratories, and pharmaceutical companies, and the path to each of them runs through a different mix of program funding, government relations, policy, and commercial sales. This role owns the operational machine that turns a first conversation into a funded contract, and keeps the pipeline honest, legible, and moving. You will work directly alongside the Head of Operations, Forward Deployed Engineers, and Founders on the highest-leverage customer-facing problems we face. You will own the CRM and the pipeline end-to-end, manage our government affairs and lobbying relationships, represent Valthos at conferences and industry events, help source and qualify new opportunities, and drive proposals and contracts across the finish line. Whether you aspire to be an entrepreneur, a future head of growth, or to build a category-defining company's commercial engine, we believe Valthos is the best place, with the best colleagues, to learn how. THE ROLE - Run the pipeline: qualify and prioritize opportunities across federal, national lab, and commercial customers; drive weekly pipeline reviews; and hold the team accountable to the milestones and timelines each deal requires - Manage our government affairs and lobbying program: coordinate with our external lobbyists and policy advisors, track legislative and regulatory activity relevant to biodefense and biosecurity, prepare briefing materials for Hill and agency meetings, and help shape and source funding for new biodefense programs - Represent Valthos externally: attend conferences, industry events, and customer meetings; build and maintain relationships with program managers, contracting officers, and commercial counterparts; and bring back a clean account of what you learned that the rest of the team can act on - Drive proposals, contracts, and procurement end-to-end: project-manage SBIR / STTR, OTA, BAA, and commercial responses; coordinate with technical contributors; and own the schedule, the submission, and the follow-through - Build the growth playbook: document what works and what does not, turn every win and loss into a reusable pattern, and help the team get better at each successive deal - Partner closely with Forward Deployed Engineers and product to make sure what we are selling and what we are shipping are aligned, and to close the feedback loop between customers and the roadmap - Own the team's operating cadence: run meeting schedules, manage calendars and agendas, drive weekly team-wide updates and all-hands, and make sure the decisions, owners, and next steps from every meeting are captured and followed through - Pick up generalist operations work as the company needs it: investor diligence support, events, internal offsites, facilities emergencies, and whatever else is required to keep the team moving QUALIFICATIONS (REQUIRED) - 3+ years in a growth operations, business development, sales operations, revenue operations, government affairs, investment banking, management consulting, or special projects role at a high-tempo, high-ownership environment - Hands-on experience managing a BD pipeline: building schemas, dashboards, and workflows, and holding a team accountable to using them - Strong project management instincts; proven ability to drive complex, multi-stakeholder processes (e.g., proposals, M&A diligence, large commercial deals) to an on-time result - Strong financial and analytical fluency; comfortable in Excel, running scenario and win-rate analyses, and reasoning about pipeline health and forecast accuracy from numbers - Exceptional written and verbal communication. You will draft proposals, briefing memos, customer-facing materials, and investor updates that need to meet the bar of the most senior people in the room - Willingness and interest to travel to customer sites, conferences, DC, and government facilities - High ownership and a bias to action. You would rather unblock the team by running something yourself than wait for someone else to do it QUALIFICATIONS (PREFERRED) - Prior experience in defense tech, national security, or government contracting; familiarity with FAR / DFARS, OTAs, BAAs, SBIR / STTR, and the federal procurement lifecycle is a plus - Experience working with or inside a government affairs, lobbying, or policy shop, or direct exposure to Hill and agency engagement - Background in or exposure to life sciences, pharma, or biotech commercial operations - Experience at an high-growth startup, ideally as one of the first GTM or operations hires If there is a fit, we will schedule behavioral and case-based interviews. The final step is an onsite in our office, where you will work on a scoped project, discuss ideas, and work with the wider team.