Capture Strategy Associate

At Sift, we’re redefining how modern machines are built, tested, and operated. Our platform gives engineers real-time observability over high-frequency telemetry—eliminating bottlenecks and enabling faster, more reliable development.

Sift was born from our work at SpaceX on Dragon, Falcon, Starlink, and Starship—where scaling telemetry, debugging flight systems, and ensuring mission reliability demanded new infrastructure. Founded by a team from SpaceX, Google, and Palantir, Sift is built for mission-critical systems where precision and scalability are non-negotiable.

About the Role

Sift is looking for a driven, mission-aligned professional to help scale our impact in industries where failure is not an option—space systems, autonomous vehicles, renewable infrastructure, and defense. You’ll operate at the front lines of our growth, identifying strategic opportunities, owning the sales process, and helping engineering teams adopt Sift to move faster, safer, and with more clarity.

This isn’t a high-volume cold-calling role. We’re looking for someone who can understand technical environments, navigate complex organizations, and collaborate with engineers, operators, and program managers. You should be comfortable with ambiguity, quick to learn, and motivated by the opportunity to work on mission-critical problems with companies reinventing what’s possible.

This role is ideal for someone with experience in high-stakes environments: military, technical capture, strategic sourcing, or customer-facing roles where precision, initiative, and cross-functional leadership are required.

What You’ll Do

• Own a portfolio of strategic accounts and opportunities in which you’ll bring discipline and urgency to every step to drive awareness and ultimately engagement—from first touch to handoff to sales demo. 

• Map complex orgs: Understand decision-making structures, program timelines, and technical requirements across engineering, procurement, and program leadership.

• Prospect and qualify strategically: Target companies and stakeholders working in frontier industries, including aerospace, defense, and industrial automation. Use intelligence, creativity, and tenacity to earn trust and start meaningful conversations.

• Run discovery like an engineer: Go beyond surface-level qualification. Dig deep into technical workflows, system bottlenecks, safety protocols, and organizational goals. Translate those into actionable paths to value.

• Develop opportunities by identifying where Sift’s platform can accelerate decision-making, reduce downtime, or improve safety. Leverage customer success stories, hands-on pilots, and prototypes.

• Collaborate cross-functionally with Engineering, Product, and Solutions to scope complex opportunities and ensure delivery matches promise.

• Contribute to the mission: You’ll support initiatives beyond direct sales—field events, customer workshops, strategic partnerships, and thought leadership—to elevate Sift’s role in the market.

The Skillset You'll Bring

• 3+ years in a high-performance, customer-facing environment: B2B sales, consulting, military, program/capture management, research analysis, or technical sourcing.

• Demonstrated success navigating complex buying processes—ideally in government, defense, or advanced manufacturing.

• Experience working with or selling to engineers, operators, or technical buyers.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills—you can distill complexity into clear, actionable insight.

• A track record of ownership and follow-through in ambiguous, high-autonomy environments.

• Deep interest in hard tech, national security, advanced engineering, or infrastructure.

• Bonus: familiarity with proposal development, technical capture, pricing strategy, or cross-functional program execution.

Location:

The Sift team is based in El Segundo. We collaborate in person four times per week, Monday to Thursday. We work closely with hardware companies, many of which are based in LA, building everything from autonomous vehicles to spacecraft. As a customer-centric company, being nearby for site visits and collaboration is essential. Sift is open to relocating you to LA. #LI-SIFT