Director, Business Development

About this role

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

As Director of Business Development, you will be a force multiplier for Armada’s executive leadership — ensuring that every high-value commercial and partnership opportunity is rigorously qualified, intelligently contextualized, and routed with precision. Armada operates in a fast-moving, high-stakes environment where executive leadership attracts significant inbound interest from potential customers, partners, and strategic collaborators. Your job is to make sure that interest translates into the right outcomes for Armada.

This is a highly strategic, high-judgment role. You will join executive leadership in key meetings, prepare them with crisp company context and target outcomes, and serve as the commercial intelligence layer that separates signal from noise. You know how to open conversations, how to listen for what matters, and — critically — how to professionally close out opportunities that are not the right fit for Armada now or into the future.

You will work closely with sales and partnerships teams, handing off only what is well-qualified and clearly scoped. You will also bring a researcher’s rigor and a strategist’s instinct to market intelligence, helping Armada understand the commercial landscape and identify where we should be proactively investing attention.

You will report to the VP of Business Operations and work in close partnership with Armada’s senior executive team.

Location. This role is preferably based in the San Francisco Bay Area or Seattle, WA.

What You’ll Do (Key Responsibilities)

Executive Leadership Deal Support and Meeting Excellence

• Join executive leadership for inbound commercial, partnership, and strategic meetings as a standing presence — providing context, capturing key outputs, and helping shape how Armada is positioned in the room.

• Prepare executive leadership ahead of meetings with tight, actionable briefings: who we’re meeting, why it matters, what we know about them, and what outcomes we’re trying to achieve.

• Serve as a trusted thought partner to executive leadership in real time — shaping the narrative, flagging risks, and ensuring Armada leaves every meeting with clear next steps.

• Own follow-through from executive leadership meetings: document commitments, route action items, and ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

Opportunity Qualification and Pipeline Discipline

• Act as Armada’s primary qualification layer for inbound commercial and partner opportunities. Apply rigorous, structured judgment to determine whether an opportunity merits Armada’s time and attention.

• Develop and maintain a qualification framework that reflects Armada’s current priorities, growth strategy, and deal thresholds — and evolve it as the business changes.

• Know when to say no. Close out opportunities that are not the right fit with professionalism and care — protecting Armada’s reputation and the time of senior leadership.

• Route qualified opportunities to the appropriate team (sales, partnerships, or executive) with clear context, qualification notes, and a recommended path forward.

• Work closely with sales reps and the partnerships team to ensure warm handoffs and continuity.

Market Intelligence and Commercial Research

• Proactively scan the commercial landscape to identify emerging opportunities, competitive signals, and market trends relevant to Armada’s growth priorities.

• Synthesize market intelligence into clear, concise briefs for executive leadership that drive better decisions about where to invest attention.

• Build deep understanding of Armada’s target verticals (defense, energy, public safety, manufacturing, sovereign AI) and the partner and customer ecosystems within them.

• Develop profiles of key prospect organizations, track relationship status, and maintain institutional knowledge that persists across conversations.

Strategic Business Development (Non-Commissioned)

• Identify net-new strategic opportunities that align with Armada’s near- and long-term priorities — not just reactive work, but proactive deal shaping.

• Build and maintain trusted relationships with senior decision-makers across potential customer, partner, and investor communities.

• Collaborate with executive leadership, VP of Programs & Partnerships, and sales leadership to align on where Armada’s business development effort is focused and how success is measured.

About You (Required Qualifications)

• 8–12+ years of experience in business development, strategic sales, or a commercial function where qualification, prioritization, and executive relationship management were core to the role.

• Demonstrated qualification expertise: a strong track record of assessing commercial opportunities quickly and accurately, saying yes to the right things and closing out the wrong ones with professionalism.

• Executive presence: polished and credible in senior-level

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