Senior Account Executive - Defense

This is a senior sales role leading Jiga's expansion into defense manufacturing. You'll own the full sales cycle with Tier 2/3 suppliers and defense startups - companies under real pressure to fix broken supply chains and turn them into long-term production relationships. ABOUT JIGA Jiga is the professional manufacturing platform that helps the world's best companies make their products. Companies source the mission-critical parts that help them launch satellites, build robotics, and strengthen national security. We're a fast-growing Series A, Y Combinator backed company transforming how hardware companies build their supply chains. We have strong and proven product market fit, growing exponentially YoY. Teams at companies like NASA, Collins, Archer and Leidos use our platform to get high-quality custom parts faster. MARKET TIMING Defense supply chains are broken. Programs stall because procurement teams can't find qualified suppliers fast enough. Parts get delayed. Costs spiral. The US industrial base has capacity, but the system is inefficient and outdated. The companies feeling this most acutely aren't the Lockheeds and Raytheons. It's the Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers, the manufacturers who actually make the parts that go into every fighter jet, satellite, and submarine. And it's the defense tech startups who are building the next generation of defense capability and need manufacturing partners who can move at startup speed. These companies are under enormous pressure. They're dealing with suppliers who ghost them, miss deadlines, and deliver parts that don't meet spec. Their supply chains are their bottleneck and they know it. This is the problem we solve. Jiga fixes this. We don't replace the existing supply base. We make it work better. Our platform uses AI to match defense buyers directly with the right US manufacturers, resolves issues before they happen, releases buyers and suppliers from admin, and builds lasting relationships that turn into repeat production wins. ABOUT THE ROLE You'll be selling to the companies that are under the most pressure to accelerate their supply chains: Tier 2/3 defense suppliers who just won contracts they can't fulfill, and defense tech startups who need parts yesterday. These aren't enterprise sales with 18-month cycles and endless procurement committees. These are urgent, high-stakes deals where the buyer is feeling real pain and needs a solution now. You'll be finding these companies, understanding their manufacturing challenges, and showing them how Jiga can be the difference between making their delivery date and losing their contract. OUR CULTURE We're a remote-first company. We don't count hours, we measure performance. We trust our team to deliver. We hate micromanagement and unproductive meetings. We play online games together, encourage hard questions, and fly everyone out once a year for a week-long offsite in a beautiful location (previous offsites: Spain, Greece, Albania). WHAT YOU'LL DO HUNT AND BUILD PIPELINE - Find Tier 2/3 suppliers and defense startups who are struggling with their supply chains - Cold outbound, events, referrals, creative prospecting. Whatever it takes - Travel to defense industry events and customer sites to build relationships RUN CONSULTATIVE SALES CYCLES - Lead discovery with supply chain leaders and engineering teams - Understand their manufacturing pain, demo Jiga, and close deals - Navigate procurement teams, multi-stakeholder decisions, and defense-adjacent complexity BECOME THE TRUSTED EXPERT - Deeply understand your customers' manufacturing challenges: lead times, supplier reliability, documentation, capacity constraints - Lead with insight. Be a trusted advisor, not just a seller - Coordinate with ops on custom manufacturing requirements, DFM, and production timelines SHAPE HOW WE GO TO MARKET - Your insights on ICP, messaging, and objection handling will shape how we scale - Feed learnings back to product and marketing on what defense customers need YOU'RE A FIT IF YOU MUST-HAVES - Defense ecosystem experience. 6+ years in defense/government sales, BD, or roles where you sold to or worked with manufacturers serving defense. You know the buyers and how deals get done. - Manufacturing or industrial sales experience. You've sold physical products, parts, or supply chain solutions. You understand procurement pain. - Proven hunter. You've built pipeline through outbound, not just worked inbound leads. You can start from zero and create opportunities. - Proven closer. Track record of closing complex B2B deals through consultative selling. - Startup DNA. You've worked at fast-moving, venture-backed companies. You thrive in ambiguity, move fast, and do grunt work without ego. - US citizen, US-based (defense hub preferred: LA, DC, Austin) TRAITS WE LOOK FOR - You own your outcomes and don't need micro-management - You have a get-stuff-done attitude and work fast - You're not afraid to make mistakes and get your hands dirty - You're technically curious. You ask smart questions about how things are made - You're mission-driven. You care about American manufacturing and national security THIS ROLE IS NOT FOR YOU IF... - You need inbound leads handed to you - You're uncomfortable with rejection and cold outreach - You want a playbook instead of building one - You prefer long enterprise cycles over high-velocity deals - You're optimizing for short-term quota over long-term relationships WHY JOIN US - Real impact - Your work directly affects whether defense companies meet their deadlines and contracts - Ownership - Build pipeline and close deals with full autonomy - Growth - Series A company building toward massive outcomes - Culture - Autonomy, honesty, speed, and a no-BS environment - Mission - Help rebuild American manufacturing capacity and strengthen national security - Flexibility - Fully remote, async-first, results-oriented (with travel to customers and events)