Growth Operations Manager
About the Role
Vatn Systems is seeking a Growth Operations Manager to serve as the operational backbone of our BD organization. In this role, you will help facilitate the processes and coordination that enable our business development team to move quickly and win. You will manage our CRM infrastructure, drive reporting and pipeline discipline, coordinate the logistics behind customer engagements and industry events, and shepherd opportunity submissions from intake through proposal. This is a high-visibility, cross-functional role, ideal for someone who thrives on organization, ownership, and keeping many moving parts aligned in a fast-paced defense technology environment.
Responsibilities
CRM and Pipeline Management
- Own and administer the company's CRM platforms (Salesforce, Pryzm), including data hygiene, user management, and workflow configuration
- Generate and distribute regular sales and pipeline reports, dashboards, and forecasts for leadership and BD stakeholders
- Track opportunities through each stage of the pipeline and ensure timely, accurate updates from the BD team
Product Catalog and Sales Enablement
- Coordinate with engineering and finance to maintain and update the product catalog, pricing references, and configuration data
- Ensure BD and sales materials reflect current product specifications, availability, and messaging
- Support the development and maintenance of customer-facing collateral, briefings, and capability statements
Event and Meeting Coordination
- Plan and coordinate participation in trade shows, conferences, demonstrations, and customer engagements, including facilitating attendees, registration, booth logistics, and travel
- Manage shipping and logistics for equipment, demo hardware, and materials to event and customer sites
- Schedule and organize internal and external meetings, customer visits, and BD reviews
Process and Operations
- Develop, document, and continuously improve BD operational processes and standard operating procedures
- Track BD metrics and KPIs, and support cadence for pipeline reviews and win/loss analysis
- Coordinate with marketing, contracts, program management, and executive leadership to facilitate BD activity alignment with company mission
- Manage BD budget tracking, travel coordination, and expense reconciliation as needed
Qualifications
Required
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent relevant experience
- 3+ years of experience in business development operations, sales operations, or a comparable coordination-heavy role
- Ability to travel up to 60%
- Experience working with government submission portals such as SAM.gov, PIEE, and DSIP
- Strong organizational and project management skills with the ability to juggle multiple priorities and deadlines
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Proficiency with Salesforce, Confluence, Jira, Slack, and Microsoft Office/productivity tools
- Strong Excel skills required to build dashboards for pipeline reporting and forecasting
- U.S. Person status (required for compliance with ITAR/export control regulations)
Preferred
- Prior sales or business development experience, particularly in the defense industry
- Understanding of defense acquisition strategy and the DoD procurement lifecycle
- Familiarity with Salesforce and/or Pryzm
- Experience coordinating proposals, RFIs/RFPs, and government or prime-contractor submissions
- Experience with event/trade show coordination and associated logistics
- Active or eligible U.S. security clearance is a plus, but not required
Vatn is an equal opportunity employer, and we welcome candidates from all backgrounds to apply. We look forward to reviewing your application and potentially having you join our team in shaping the future of autonomous underwater vehicles.
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