---
title: 'Strategic Partnerships Lead at Istari Digital'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/strategic-partnerships-lead-istari-digital-dmv-washington-dc-maryland-4xt0a6ymtqcp'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-12'
---

# Strategic Partnerships Lead at Istari Digital

- **Company:** Istari Digital
- **Location:** Dmv Washington Dc Maryland, VA
- **Compensation:** $174k–$210k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-02-20
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/istaridigital.ai/011da4c8-4be8-4a2b-9af9-39fbad33735c

## Job description

## [ABOUT ISTARI DIGITAL]

Istari is a digital engineering software company enabling our customers to turn the physical world into the digital to accomplish their specific mission or business objectives.

Istari was founded with the vision of making open, scalable digital engineering ecosystems a reality – where new technologies and systems are created digitally, free from the real-world constraints of costs and schedules. We are creating the world’s best engineering model sharing platform, allowing our customers to simply and securely integrate their models across different engineering disciplines, organizations, and security levels.

At Istari, we are passionate about our mission of creating the world's first open and scalable industrial metaverse. Whether our customers are designing prototypes, performing virtual testing, or training AI and autonomy for complex systems, we know that going digital will save them time, resources, and reduce their environmental impact.

While we are a distributed team with most team-members working remotely, we place an emphasis on staying connected and collaborative, prioritizing in-person opportunities to build trust as a team. At Istari, we still believe that trust is best built in-person. To do this, we have an engineering headquarters in Cambridge, MA for focused technical development and several times per year we gather for an off-site that allows us to develop our professional skills and our team relationships.

## [VALUES]

At Istari, we live by our values, which include:

- Focus is rewarded. Finish is remembered.
- Facts are friendly. Even when they are not fun.
- Fellowship is fundamental. Make others successful.

## Equal Opportunity

Istari is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, protected veteran status, or disability status.

The Strategic Partnerships Lead is responsible for building, managing, and operationalizing Istari’s ecosystem of strategic technology partners—particularly engineering tool providers, channel partners and prime partners pursuing large federal captures—to support capture efforts and long-term market expansion.

This role sits at the intersection of partnerships, sales, and technical strategy. You will develop teaming relationships, shape joint value propositions, and support capture teams by positioning Istari and its partners as differentiated, mission-aligned solutions for complex government programs.

Successful candidates bring credibility across federal teaming environments, strong technical fluency in engineering software ecosystems, and the ability to translate partnerships into concrete capture advantages.

## Key Responsibilities

- Strategic Partnership Development: Identify, evaluate, and establish strategic relationships with engineering tool providers, data platforms, and adjacent technology partners (e.g., CAD/CAE, digital engineering, security, observability, data infrastructure). Build executive and working-level relationships across partner organizations, including BD, product, and technical leadership. Define partnership models spanning teaming agreements, joint solutions, go-to-market alignment, and long-term platform integration. Define metrics for joint-GTM motions and track contribution to revenue growth.
- Federal Teaming & Capture Support: Support Federal capture teams by developing teaming strategies aligned to specific programs, agencies, and mission needs. Shape partner-inclusive value propositions that clearly articulate Istari’s differentiated role within broader solution stacks. Contribute to capture planning, whitepapers, RFI/RFP responses, and oral strategies where partner alignment is critical. Help identify incumbents, competitors, and ecosystem gaps within target programs and advise on optimal teaming configurations.
- Joint Value Proposition & Solution Strategy: Collaborate with Product, Engineering, and Solution Architects to define how partner technologies integrate with Istari’s platform. Translate technical integrations into compelling narratives around mission impact, program risk reduction, and operational outcomes. Ensure partner positioning reinforces Istari as foundational digital engineering infrastructure—not a point solution.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with Federal Account Executives, BD, and Sales Leadership to align partnerships with active pursuits and pipeline. Provide market, partner, and competitive insights to Product and Engineering to inform roadmap priorities. Coordinate with Marketing and Sales Enablement on partner messaging, collateral, and field readiness (as needed).

Required Qualifications

- 6–10+ years of experience in engagement management, strategic partnerships, federal BD, capture support, or ecosystem-focused roles.
- Experience operating in DoD, federal civilian, or national security markets with exposure to formal teaming and capture processes.
- Background working with engineering software, data platforms, infrastructure tools, or highly technical B2B solutions.
- Demonstrated success translating partnerships into tangible capture or revenue outcomes.
- Strong understanding of federal teaming dynamics, partner incentives, and capture mechanics.
- Ability to engage credibly with technical, product, and business stakeholders across multiple organizations.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills; comfortable contributing to capture artifacts and executive-level discussions.
- Strategic mindset paired with a bias toward execution in a fast-moving, early-stage environment.
- High ownership, autonomy, and comfort operating with ambiguity.
- Team Player
- U.S. citizenship or permanent residency required (due to the nature of our work with the Department of Defense)

## Preferred Qualifications

- Experience partnering with or selling alongside engineering tool vendors (CAD/CAE, PLM, digital engineering, security, data infrastructure).
- Familiarity with digital engineering, model-based systems engineering (MBSE), or engineering data workflows.
- Prior experience supporting major defense primes, system integrators, or large federal programs.
- Background in aerospace, defense, or national security technology ecosystems.

## BENEFITS

We offer highly competitive benefits, including:

Health and Family

- Medical/Dental/Vision
- Employee Premiums are 100% Company Paid
- Life Insurance
- Flexible Work Hours
- Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO) with federal government holidays

Financial

- Competitive Compensation
- 401k
- Company Stock Options
- Home Office Setup Budget

Learning

- Reimbursement for approved trainings and subscriptions
- Conferences (travel, lodging, and fees)

Note - some benefits are not available to interns or contractors.

Thank you for your interest in Istari. Expect to hear back from us soon with next steps.

## 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)

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