Director, Business Development (Advanced Energy)

About Avalanche Energy

Avalanche Energy is a Washington-based startup building compact, deployable fusion systems through rapid hardware iteration. Rather than pursuing fusion as a single grid-scale outcome, Avalanche develops transportable fusion machines designed to be built, tested, and operated on short cycles, turning real hardware into steady progress. This approach enables near-term applications that demand extreme energy density and endurance—starting with fusion neutron production for radioisotope power and other defense and space uses—while advancing the underlying fusion platform. Backed by U.S. government programs and a team experienced in delivering complex systems, Avalanche is focused on building fusion that runs in the real world, not just on paper.

About The Role

We are seeking a senior business development professional to drive commercialization activities for our various energy technologies during a period of rapid growth. Avalanche will remain R&D-intensive for the next several years, and this leader will connect mission needs, acquisition and budget strategy, technology maturation, and commercialization while helping the company build scalable operating discipline.

You will secure government and commercial contracts and agreements, establish strategic partnerships across government, industry, national labs, and academia, and support the development of value chains required to go to market. This role is critical to the commercialization of Avalanche Energy’s fusion and fusion-enabling technologies effort and could grow into a GM-level role with P&L responsibility.

This position reports to the Director of Strategy and will work closely with executive, technical, legal, finance, regulatory, compliance, and operations leadership to align business development priorities with RDT&E, commercialization, and growth objectives.

Key Responsibilities

Federal Capture (DOE/NNSA-first, broader federal as needed)

• Own a 12–24-month federal contracts pipeline from opportunity shaping → proposal process → award execution handoff.
• Produce presentations, white papers, technical proposals, and agency responses.
• Lead capture operations from opportunity qualification and bid/no-bid through capture planning and solution development.
• Organize and lead cross-functional proposal teams to secure non-traditional and FAR-based prime and sub-contracts/agreements that accelerate technical milestones (e.g., neutron source development, isotope production pathway, and fusion power system maturation) and eventually long-term production and procurement contracts.
• Negotiate teaming agreements, subcontracts, and awards, with attention to pricing, cost share, IP and technical data rights, flow-downs, security, and transition rights.
• Translate complex science into compelling, fundable value propositions for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Support strategic Congressional and Departmental engagement activities.

Strategic Partnership Development

• Build and maintain senior relationships across DOE program offices, NNSA, national labs, and aligned industry partners needed for technology development and scale-up.
• Structure partnerships that unlock facilities, test capabilities, supply chain, manufacturing, and deployment and disposal channels.
• Represent Avalanche at relevant conferences, customer engagements, and partner meetings to build credibility, partnerships, and deal flow.

Commercialization and Value Chain Development

• Work with strategy and technical teams to ensure BD priorities map to the GTM/commercialization plan.
• Drive continuous market and customer discovery efforts and feed findings back into R&D and engineering priorities and program plans.
• Develop and negotiate teaming agreements and other commercial agreements that support technology commercialization.
• Develop GTM pathways that lead to long-term recurring revenue streams for emerging company products and services.
• Source materials, procure suppliers, support marketing, sales, and customer success activities, and advise on how to organize the firm to enable successful GTM.
• Lead future site selection efforts with an eye towards scaling production and operations.
• Support the development of Avalanche’s federal business unit.

Required Qualifications

• 15+ years’ experience in business development and capture/proposal management with referenceable success winning $10M+ DOE (and other federal) prime RDT&E grants, contracts, and agreements.
• Deep experience spanning DOE, national labs, and industry—including a strong network and demonstrated ability to navigate the DOE and funding processes and lab partnership mechanisms.
• Proven history of successfully negotiating and closing multi-million dollar, high-risk, long-term contracts involving government regulation, complex financing structures, and highly technical products/services.
• Strong understanding of the FAR, federal contract vehicles and types, and the various grants and agreements used by the DOE, such as partnership intermediary agreements, cooperative agreements, other transaction agreements, consortium agreements, etc.
• Experience collaborating with engineers and scientists to translate complex technical concepts into detailed white papers, proposals, RFI responses, presentations, and other tactical communications for business development purposes.
• Understanding of the federal regulatory landscape for fusion or nuclear and its related processes, including newly emergent, fusion-specific regulations.
• Startup “builder” mindset: comfortable wearing many hats and driving outcomes in ambiguous, resource-constrained environments.
• Bachelor’s degree in business, engineering, finance, or a related technical field. MBA or advanced technical degree is strongly preferred.
• Ability to obtain and hold a DoW TS/SCI or DOE Q clearance.

Preferred / Bonus

• Direct experience with fusion, nuclear, neutron sources, isotopes, radiation-relevant programs, or adjacent deep-tech hardware commercialization and deployment.
• Direct experience with commercializing or deploying complex capital projects.
• Experience with capturing and negotiating federal procurement or production contracts.
• Experience with selling technical services to the federal government and industry.
• Experience in defense-tech or other high-compliance environments.
• Business development experience with the DoW and major defense primes.
• International business development experience.
• Experience with DFARS.
• Experience working for or with non-traditional contractors.
• PMP (or equivalent) and experience with strong program/capture operating cadence.
• Experience with financial modeling and business case development.
• Active DoW TS/SCI or DOE Q clearance.
• Previous P&L responsibility.

Perks

• Excellent medical, dental and vision benefits.
• 10 paid holidays and company-wide December holiday break.
• Generous paid vacation and sick time.
• Small, tight-knit team with low barriers to action.
• Exposure to a wide variety of problems for unparalleled, hands-on professional growth.
• Meaningful equity in the form of stock options.

We value people of all backgrounds. We are an equal opportunity employer, and you do not need to match every listed qualification to apply. If you like being hands-on, all over the system, and making difficult hardware work in the real world, we encourage you to apply.

This position may require access to export-controlled information. In order to comply with U.S. export control laws, applicants must be a “U.S. person” as defined by U.S. trade control laws (U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual).