Head of Business Defense (m/f/d)

Your Role We are seeking a dynamic and strategic Head of Business to lead our business development and sales efforts across the full customer lifecycle. This senior leadership role drives sustainable growth and shapes how our platform delivers value in the defense market. Your main tasks are: Lead the end-to-end customer lifecycle: business development, sales, deal closure, renewals, and long-term account management. Build and maintain strategic relationships with government agencies, armed forces, defense primes, operators, and key stakeholders in the off-road autonomy space. Lead and inspire a cross-functional team across business development, sales, and product marketing. Shape the product roadmap in collaboration with platform engineering. Match market needs with technical capabilities to build value-driven offerings. Design and refine business models and pricing strategies aligned with defense procurement cycles, and long-term value generation. Build deep understanding of market dynamics and competitors to inform strategy and positioning. Align commercial initiatives with company vision, budgets, and timelines. Your Background 5+ years in business development and sales within the defense industry, ideally with autonomy, AI or robotics background. Direct experience with defense procurement cycles and contracting structures is a must. Proven track record in designing and executing repeatable sales workflows for complex, deep-tech, enterprise-grade products. Demonstrated ability to scale revenue from early traction to significant growth. Strong communication, negotiation, and conflict-resolution skills to navigate complex and high-stakes discussions empathetically and effectively. Experienced in building and leading high-performance, results-driven teams. Willingness and flexibility to travel on short notice based on business needs. Strong technical acumen — comfortable engaging in AI, software, and autonomy-related discussions. We understand that not everyone will meet all the criteria! If you see yourself in these points, we’d love to learn more about you! About Us driveblocks, based in Munich, builds a robust und certifiable technology platform for Off-Road autonomy across verticals such as agriculture, construction, and defense. The technology combines a universal neural network foundation model with geometrically interpretable sensor fusion to create the next-generation perception software suite. It operates without costly pre-mapping and constant connectivity, enabling operation even in GNSS-denied environments. Our platform runs on production-grade embedded hardware, ensuring reliable operation in dirty, dusty, and complex 3D environments. It navigates through vegetation and rough terrain — essential for off-road autonomy. We are a growing deep-tech company with a strong technical foundation, focused on long-term customer value and continuous improvement. At driveblocks, innovation thrives through learning and ownership — the core of our culture. Working at driveblocks Ownership of your work – Take responsibility for the full value chain Competitive Compensation & Benefits Participate in driveblocks’ success via a Virtual Stock Option Plan Flexible working hours How To Apply Prepare your CV & additional documents Show your unique motivation