--- title: 'Public Policy Manager at Istari Digital' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/public-policy-manager-istari-digital-arlington-v6f6cyvwmqxc' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-07' --- # Public Policy Manager at Istari Digital - **Company:** Istari Digital - **Location:** Arlington, VA - **Compensation:** $80k–$100k - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** hybrid - **Posted:** 2026-11-03 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-07 - **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/istaridigital.ai/b0709871-76ef-4088-9ba1-6afaac74fceb ## Job description Government affairs plays a strategic role at Istari, advancing the company's federal strategy, securing funding, supporting business development, and building relationships across Congress, federal agencies, and industry. Reporting to the Director of Government and External Affairs and working closely with executive leadership, the Policy Analyst will own key policy issues, conduct independent research, and develop strategies that advance Istari's priorities. This role requires strong analytical judgment, initiative, and the ability to translate complex policy developments into strategic opportunities at the intersection of national security, emerging technology, and federal policy. Core Responsibilities - Manage key policy portfolios, independently monitoring developments, assessing implications, and recommending strategic actions. - Lead research and analysis of federal legislation, appropriations, authorizations, executive branch initiatives, and regulatory developments. - Develop policy positions, legislative proposals, and engagement strategies aligned with Istari's business and technology objectives. - Identify federal funding opportunities, emerging government priorities, and policy initiatives that support business development and market expansion. - Analyze congressional and agency priorities, federal budgets, and defense programs to identify opportunities and risks. - Lead specific government affairs initiatives, managing research, stakeholder engagement, and execution from start to finish. - Build and maintain relationships with congressional offices, federal agencies, industry organizations, and strategic partners. - Produce substantive policy analyses, position papers, and strategic recommendations to inform leadership decisions. - Represent Istari at congressional meetings, agency engagements, conferences, and industry events. - Collaborate with business development, product, and engineering teams to connect policy priorities with customer needs and company strategy. - Coordinate strategic engagements and cross-functional initiatives, ensuring accountability and follow-through. Required Qualifications - 3–5 years of experience in public policy, government affairs, congressional offices, federal agencies, lobbying, or a related field. - Bachelor's degree in Political Science, Public Policy, Government, International Affairs, or a related discipline (or equivalent experience). - Strong understanding of Congress, the Executive Branch, federal budgeting, and the policymaking process. - Demonstrated ability to independently research complex policy issues, assess implications, and develop actionable recommendations. - Excellent analytical, written, and verbal communication skills. - Experience managing policy initiatives, legislative priorities, or research portfolios with limited oversight. - Strong judgment, initiative, organizational skills, and ability to manage multiple priorities independently. - Experience engaging with congressional staff, federal officials, senior executives, and external stakeholders. - Proficiency with Microsoft Office and Google Workspace; CRM experience preferred. - Interest or experience in aerospace, defense, national security, artificial intelligence, or emerging technologies. - Willingness to travel up to 25%. ## Preferred Experience - Experience in a congressional office, federal agency, think tank, government affairs firm, or in-house policy team. - Familiarity with federal appropriations, authorizations, defense budgeting, and acquisition policy. - Experience developing legislative proposals, policy recommendations, or government engagement strategies. - Experience connecting policy developments to business development opportunities and organizational strategy. ## About Istari Digital Istari is a digital engineering software company building open, scalable infrastructure for engineering data. Our platform lets customers simply and securely integrate engineering models across disciplines, organizations, and security levels — whether they're designing prototypes, performing virtual testing, or training AI and autonomy for complex systems. Focus is rewarded.  Finish is remembered. Facts are friendly.  Even when they are not fun. Fellowship is fundamental.  Make others successful. ## About Istari Digital ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Istari Digital provides a digital engineering infrastructure platform that connects and validates engineering data across fragmented environments for mission-critical industries like aerospace, defense, and energy. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series A‑II; venture-backed) - **Headquarters**: Arlington, Virginia, United States - **Founded**: 2022 - **Founders**: Dr. Will Roper (CEO) and Christopher Benson (CTO) ## Core Business - **Primary industries**: Aerospace, defense, space, energy, transportation, critical infrastructure - **Target customers**: Enterprise and government organizations in “no‑fail” sectors (e.g., Lockheed Martin, Blue Origin) - **Mission**: “Level the digital playing field in no‑fail industries” – enabling secure, auditable, and AI‑native engineering workflows without centralizing sensitive data ## Products & Services - **[Istari Digital Platform](https://www.istaridigital.com/product)**: A digital infrastructure that securely routes engineering data across tools, teams, and classification boundaries. It connects models, simulations, and workflows to enable real‑time collaboration, system validation, and compliance certification – all while keeping data under the owner’s control. (Type: SaaS / Platform) ## Market Standing - **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total funding – $55.05M (per CBInsights) or $40.1M (per LinkedIn); conflicting reports may reflect different round definitions - **Notable Investors**: Icon Ventures, Teamworthy Ventures, Eric Schmidt, AeroX Ventures, Radius Capital - **Growth Signals**: - Headcount of 64 employees (+61.5% year‑over-year) - LinkedIn followers grew 48.1% in the past year - Acquired Istari Federal LLC and Dgraph (2025) - Customers include Lockheed Martin and Blue Origin - 27 patents filed (as of early 2025) ## Competitive Advantages - **Built for no‑fail industries**: The platform is designed for environments where failure is not an option (fighter jets, satellites, critical infrastructure), giving it a deep credibility moat. - **Secure collaboration without compromise**: Enables cross‑organization, cross‑classification collaboration while allowing each party to retain control of their own data – a key differentiator in defense and regulated sectors. - **Agentic engineering & AI‑native workflows**: Integrates AI into engineering validation and certification, reducing cycles from months to minutes. - **Founders with domain expertise**: CEO Will Roper was the former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics; CTO Christopher Benson brings deep technical experience from hyperscalers and defense programs. ## Strategic Focus - Scaling the platform to serve more mission‑critical industries (air, sea, space, energy, transportation) - Deepening AI capabilities for automated validation, compliance, and certification - Expanding through acquisitions (Istari Federal, Dgraph) to strengthen federal presence and graph‑based data capabilities - Building a distributed workforce with offices in Arlington (HQ), Cambridge (MA), and remote roles across the US ## Why Work Here - **Mission‑driven culture**: Employees work on genuinely hard, unsolved problems in decentralized data sovereignty, AI engineering, and cross‑domain security – with direct impact on national security and critical infrastructure. - **Remote‑friendly**: Many roles are listed as remote (anywhere US) or hybrid (DMV area); on‑site options exist in Huntsville, AL and Seattle, WA. - **Diverse team background**: The team comes from defense, industry, academia, government, and startups – “everyone’s background is a feature, not a footnote.” - **Growth trajectory**: Rapid headcount growth, recent acquisitions, and strong investor backing suggest a high‑growth environment with ample career development opportunities. - **Engineering culture**: Emphasis on deep curiosity, craft, and solving problems that matter; the platform is built by people who have lived the pain of manual, siloed engineering workflows. ## Sources 1. [Istari Digital – Company & Product Overview](https://www.istaridigital.com/) 2. [Istari Digital – About (Founders, Mission, Culture)](https://www.istaridigital.com/about) 3. [Istari Digital – Product Page](https://www.istaridigital.com/product) 4. [Istari Digital – Careers (Lever)](https://jobs.lever.co/istaridigital.ai/) 5. [CBInsights – Company Profile & Financials](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/istari-1) 6. [LinkedIn – Istari Digital Company Page](https://linkedin.com/company/istaridigital) ## Other roles at Istari Digital - [Sr. Security Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-security-engineer-istari-digital-united-states-bfgmqmrgde2g) — United States - [Digital Engineering Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/digital-engineering-manager-istari-digital-united-states-6z3jbwajj18z) — United States - [Infrastructure Engineer - Deployment Team](https://feeny.ai/job/infrastructure-engineer-deployment-team-istari-digital-united-states-z1jrgc0beb6v) — United States - [Federal Pre-Sales Solution Architect](https://feeny.ai/job/federal-pre-sales-solution-architect-istari-digital-united-states-w5ng6xhmt3p1) — United States - [Deployment Strategist](https://feeny.ai/job/deployment-strategist-istari-digital-dayton-77vekvdhv8nr) — Dayton, OH - [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineer-istari-digital-dayton-1qrk39kps3de) — Dayton, OH - [Strategic Partnerships Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/strategic-partnerships-lead-istari-digital-dmv-washington-dc-maryland-4xt0a6ymtqcp) — Dmv Washington Dc Maryland, VA - [Public Policy Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/public-policy-manager-airbound-bengaluru-7xc3mwhd6x1c) — Bengaluru, India / Delhi, India