Description
Director of Finance
Company: Defense-technology company (name shared under NDA)
Reports To: Co-Founder
Function: Finance
Location: Open, including remote
Travel: To Las Vegas and Virginia as needed, on short notice
Compensation: $185,000 to $235,000 base, plus bonus and equity
Confidential Search · Defense Technology
Confidential search. The hiring company's identity and full role details are shared with candidates under NDA.
About the Role
This is a rapidly growing defense-technology company with a physical hardware business and a growing book of government contract work.
Day-to-day financial management is already outsourced and a CPA is in place, so this is not a back-office hire. This seat drives financial strategy, long-range planning, budgeting, and pricing. Leadership describes it as one of the most important hires the company will make this year.
The immediate mandate is building the model against the work already won, so the company can see its peaks and valleys coming and prepare for them rather than react.
The title is Director of Finance rather than CFO, deliberately. Leadership is not looking to hire a sitting CFO. The intent is to bring in someone strong, see how they work, and grow the seat with them.
Responsibilities
- Build and own the financial model against the contract backlog, and turn it into decisions leadership can act on.
- Drive long-range planning and budgeting for a business scaling quickly on hardware.
- Own pricing so that margins hold up, and find the margin that is currently leaking.
- Manage working capital through long hardware lead times and government payment timing.
- Anticipate cash peaks and valleys and get ahead of them.
- Act as a genuine thought partner to the founders on business strategy, not only on the numbers.
- Direct the outsourced accounting function and the CPA relationship rather than doing that work.
Requirements
Must-Haves
- Defense or government contracting finance fluency. Knows what a contract modification does to the books, and how award, invoice, and payment are three separate events with three different effects. This is the one thing the company will not teach.
- A strategy and planning background rather than a controllership one. Accounts payable and receivable, close, and day-to-day accounting are handled elsewhere.
- Experience in a hardware business, where inventory, lead times, and working capital drive the cash picture.
- A point of view on the business, and the willingness to state it in the room.
- Comfort operating as the finance function in a fast-growing company rather than inside an established department.
- No minimum years of experience and no degree requirement. In practice, defense and finance experience tend to come together around eight years. Most candidates in this market carry an MBA or a graduate finance degree, and the two are treated as equivalent.
Nice-to-Haves
- Director of Finance, Head of Finance, VP Finance, or a senior financial planning and analysis lead at a growth-stage defense or national-security company, especially one with a hardware component.
- Government contracting finance at a prime or mid-tier defense manufacturer.
- Investment banking or private equity with aerospace, defense, or industrials coverage, plus real operating experience afterward.
Not a Fit
- Sitting CFOs. The company is deliberately hiring at Director level with room to grow.
- Controller and CPA-centric profiles. The back office is outsourced and stays that way.
- Commercial or software financial planning backgrounds with no government contract exposure.
Process
- This is a confidential search. An NDA is required before the company's identity and full role details are shared. We screen for interest at a high level first, then read candidates in once an NDA is in place.
- Expect a multi-stage process. This is a senior hire and the company has been explicit that it will not be decided in two conversations.
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