Project Lead – H4D Problem Curation

About the Role:

At BMNT, Project Leads play an integral role in our consulting practice. Their goal is to independently lead aspects of the program and achieve the results a customer wants related to specific projects and/or lines of effort. They strategize with, and provide overall support to, Program Managers (PM) on day-to-day customer operations and contract management. This is the introductory project level in BMNT’s Program Leadership track.

As the Project Lead I for the H4D  (Hacking for Defense) line of effort, you will specifically own the end-to-end problem curation pipeline. In this role, you are responsible for guiding sourced military and government problems through the entire qualification and scoping lifecycle, ensuring they are perfectly refined and ready for distribution to university cohorts. You will manage the execution of key workflow tasks, enforce strict quality assurance, ensure clean CRM tracking, and guarantee that the final outputs meet the standards required for the H4D program and our Department of War (DoW) client.

Location: This is a hybrid position within commuting distance to our Arlington, VA office with the expectation of being in the office three days per week and sometimes more often based on customer needs. Occasional travel required within the DC metro area, around the US and internationally.  

What You Will Be Doing (Responsibilities):

• Pipeline Management & Execution: Own the core workflow of the H4D problem pipeline, driving sourced problems smoothly from initial collection through final scoping and formal approval.
• Team Supervision & Task Delegation: Manage the workload and delegate tasks across the program analyst team to ensure that problem scoping and curation are completed in a timely, thorough manner.
• Quality Assurance (QA): Provide meticulous review of the team's work to ensure problem formatting, linguistic clarity, structural narrative, and associated data elements are correct and highly polished before sending finalized problems to the PM.
• Data Integrity & Salesforce Management: Supervise and ensure that all curated problem documentation, stakeholder details, and workflow milestones are inputted into Salesforce accurately and maintained cleanly.
• University Distribution Readiness: Maintain ultimate responsibility for the overall quality of the curated problem portfolio, verifying that problems are technically viable, operationally compelling, and fully actionable for university students.
• Mentorship & Guidance: Provide active mentorship, structural support, and constructive feedback on job performance to analysts, ensuring long-term continuous improvement and alignment over time.
• Stakeholder Coordination: Serve as a reliable touchpoint for project communications, leading meetings/calls with customers or problem sponsors, and managing scheduling requirements for industry or government engagements.
• Methodology Alignment: Maintain a deep and rich understanding of BMNT products, services, and core methodologies (Lean Startup, H4X, Design Thinking), articulating how these address customer needs and recommending pipeline updates when necessary.
• BMNT Culture: Model the desired behaviors of a successful contributor at BMNT and fully embrace the BMNT Bushido.

Experience and Qualifications You’ll Need to Thrive in this Role:

• Education & Experience: Bachelor's Degree or equivalent work experience. Requires at least 6+ years of consulting or relevant project management experience.
• Detail & Quality Focus: Meticulous attention to detail. Strong capability to evaluate datasets and written briefs to ensure absolute data validity, formatting accuracy, and structural integrity.
• CRM/Database Competency: Experience with complex project pipelines; proficiency tracking and entering programmatic milestones within CRM systems (Salesforce strongly preferred).
• Problem Solving & Analytics: Exceptional analytical skills with a genuine passion for deconstructing messy, complex, and intractable national security or organizational problems into curated, structured insights.
• Innovation Methodologies: Familiarity with modern innovation methodologies (Lean Startup, DevOps, Design Thinking, Rapid Prototyping, Agile, etc.) and/or previous exposure to the Hacking for Defense (H4D) curriculum is highly preferred.
• Subject Matter Acumen: Foundational subject matter expertise or rapid familiarity with government, military, or emerging defense technology sectors.
• Communication Excellence: Superb verbal and written communication skills—specifically the ability to transform voluminous information into highly succinct, actionable insights with minimal correction required.
• Professional Character: Exhibits high emotional intelligence (EQ) through active listening, welcoming performance feedback, demonstrating thoughtful judgment, humility, and self-awareness.

Additional Requirements:

• U.S. Citizenship required.
• Occasional travel required within the DC metro area, around the US and internationally.
• Passion for BMNT’s mission and commitment to enabling innovation at scale within the federal enterprise.

If you are a self-starter with an obsession for outcomes, not activities and a history of achievements, and enjoy working on projects with collaborative and creative teams, this could be the right role for you!

#H4D #innovation #defense #NSIN