Director of Government Relations (Aerospace)

Location: Washington, DC office; work in person. Hybrid role with approximately 25% or greater travel. U.S. Person status required.

Salary: $120,000–$220,000 annually, plus equity.

Company

hirify.global builds and operates full-size autonomous cargo aircraft, including a seaplane and a short takeoff and landing aircraft capable of carrying two tons of payload over more than a thousand nautical miles.

What you will do

• Define and lead congressional strategy across the NDAA, defense and homeland security appropriations, and oversight processes.
• Draft and advocate for authorization, report, congressional, and executive-branch language and requests.
• Build trusted relationships with Members of Congress, congressional staff, executive agencies, regulators, and industry stakeholders.
• Shape requirements, resourcing, policy, program starts, funding increases, and multi-year funding profiles for Poseidon’s platforms.
• Coordinate government-relations execution with communications, legal, corporate development, engineering, and business-line leadership.
• Build the systems, operating cadence, external-partner network, and eventual team for the government-relations function.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience in national security, government relations, or federal legislative or executive affairs, including significant Capitol Hill engagement.
• Extensive defense and national security experience and demonstrated success influencing legislative, policy, and budget outcomes through the NDAA or defense and homeland security appropriations.
• Deep working knowledge of PPBE and U.S. federal authorization and appropriations processes.
• Experience as professional staff on HASC, SASC, HAC-D, or SAC-D, as a senior appropriator, or in-house government relations at a defense technology company.
• Ability to build coalitions and relationships with congressional and executive-branch officials, industry groups, and trade associations.
• Must be a U.S. Person, work in person from the Washington, DC office, and be willing to register as an individual lobbyist under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. Bachelor’s degree required.

Nice to have

• Active or eligible TS/SCI clearance.
• Established bipartisan relationships across the Armed Services and Appropriations committees and with senior executive-branch and combatant-command stakeholders.
• Experience building a government-relations function from scratch.
• Fluency in defense acquisition, export control, aerospace, and autonomy policy.

Culture & Benefits

• Meaningful early-stage equity.
• Relocation support where applicable.
• Employee health benefit plans and a 6% retirement match.
• Flexible PTO.
• Office lunches, snacks, a stocked fridge, and access to AI tools and subscriptions.