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Ukraine Defence & UAV Business Development Consultant

Role overview

Qualifications

  • Strong network in Ukraine's defence and UAV ecosystem
  • Working understanding of Ukrainian defence procurement and technology development
  • Technical fluency in UAVs, autonomy and mission planning
  • Entrepreneurial, self-starting approach

Responsibilities

  • Deepen existing partner relationships and establish new ones with Ukrainian UAV manufacturers
  • Get technology into field and operational use with military users
  • Build relationships across the ecosystem, including manufacturers and military stakeholders
  • Generate qualified opportunities and support licensing agreements

Key facts

  • Remote from: Ukraine, Europe, EMEA
  • Freelance
  • Business Development Specialist
  • Ukrainian

Hard skills

Other skills

  • Relationship Building
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Communication

About the company

Shearwater Aerospace logo

Shearwater Aerospace

  • Defense
  • TPE
  • 2–10
In contested operations, no single factor decides the mission. Weather, terrain, aircraft performance, and energy budget interact on every sortie, and today those decisions live in separate tools and separate heads. Smart Flight reasons across all of it at once. It tells tasking what each platform can achieve right now, builds the plan that survives the conditions it will actually meet, and adapts in flight to protect reach, time on station, and the aircraft itself.

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Job description

Shearwater develops Smart Flight™, a flight-planning and optimization platform that helps UAV operators extend range, endurance and time-on-station. In complex, contested operations, weather, terrain, threats, aircraft performance, energy and payload all shape what's achievable, yet that knowledge usually lives in separate heads and separate tools. Smart Flight pulls it together, planning and adapting missions in real time so aircraft can fly when and where others believe they can't, avoid threats, draw energy from the environment, and consequently, lets operators oversee many aircraft at once. It was developed in partnership with DARPA, it's software-only, and it works with any UAV platform.

We're building our presence in Ukraine and looking for someone deeply networked in the country's UAV and defence ecosystem to lead that effort on the ground.

What you'll do

  • Deepen Shearwater's existing partner relationships and establish new ones with Ukrainian UAV manufacturers, with the goal of getting Smart Flight integrated onto their platforms.
  • Get the technology into field and operational use with military users and bring their feedback back to our engineering team.
  • Build and hold relationships across the ecosystem, including manufacturers, military and procurement stakeholders, defence-innovation organizations and the international primes operating in Ukraine.
  • Generate qualified opportunities (pilots, integrations, partnerships, procurement) and support the licensing and commercial agreements that follow.
  • Represent Shearwater at key Ukrainian and European defence and UAV events.
  • Keep leadership current on Ukrainian UAV requirements, procurement trends and the competitive landscape.

Who we're looking for

  • A strong, current network in Ukraine's defence and UAV ecosystem, with demonstrated relationships among manufacturers, military users or procurement stakeholders.
  • A working understanding of Ukrainian defence procurement and technology development. Experience bringing foreign defence technology into Ukraine is an asset.
  • Enough technical fluency in UAVs, autonomy and mission planning to represent the product credibly.
  • An entrepreneurial, self-starting approach. You create opportunities rather than manage inbound leads.

First 90 days

  • At least one manufacturer integration agreement in process.
  • Smart Flight installed on a platform.
  • A first field test run with operators, with initial feedback delivered to our engineering team.

First 180 days

  • Two or more manufacturer integrations active, with at least one running on a platform in regular use.
  • Multiple field tests completed with operators, and a repeatable feedback loop into engineering (documented findings, not just conversations).
  • At least one funded or formally sanctioned pilot, evaluation or procurement pathway in progress.
  • A qualified pipeline of named opportunities, each with an owner, a stage and a next action.
  • Draft partnership or licensing terms in place with at least one manufacturer.
  • A clear written view on export control and compliance requirements for deploying Smart Flight in Ukraine.
  • Monthly intelligence reports delivered consistently from day 30 onward.

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