Vertical Lead, Policy & National Security

Altana is the network for trusted trade. Our AI-powered product network empowers governments and businesses to build a more resilient and secure global economy while keeping trade flowing.

The Role: Vertical Technology Lead, Policy & National Security

Altana’s mission is to power a new era of globalization organized around trusted networks. Nowhere is that mission more consequential - or more demanding - than in the policy and national security community, where the questions our customers bring us are matters of sovereignty, security, and how a nation understands the networks it depends on.

These are the hardest programs we run. The technical bar is high and it keeps rising: the biggest opportunities are won, kept, and expanded on the strength of the technical work itself - sometimes on technical capability alone. As these engagements grow, so does the machinery large government partners expect from a serious partner: program management, delivery cadence, contractual rigor, accreditation. Left unmanaged, that machinery swamps the very people whose job is to architect and build.

We’re changing how we deliver so it doesn’t. Large and strategic accounts are staffed with dedicated Implementation Delivery Managers (IDMs) who carry the program, project, and delivery-management load - and, as an account grows more complex, we trade up the team to meet it. That frees the technical leadership of the vertical to do what only it can do: hold the architecture bar, win the technical argument, and drive the last mile of product where the mission needs something that doesn’t exist yet.

As Vertical Technology Lead for Policy & National Security, you own the technical outcomes for the vertical end-to-end. You are the senior technical counterpart to the vertical’s commercial leadership — setting the technical approach that wins business, owning the solution architecture and delivery that turns wins into mission outcomes, and leading the team that does the work. This is a UK-based leadership role operating in the national security context, working with classified missions and secured environments, in close partnership with our Platform Operations function and with core Engineering, Product & Design (EPD).

What You'll Do

• Own the technical approach across the vertical's capture efforts. Give the commercial team the technical volumes, proposal content, and supporting material they need to win.
• Partner with the Head of Vertical so what we sell delivers on what decision-makers and end users need. Bring technical credibility to the pitch when it counts.
• Build and maintain relationships with key technology partners across the UK and allied national security ecosystem.
• Advise commercial leadership on product-market fit and on whether proposed solution architectures can close known capability gaps.
• Turn the vertical's needs into clear, cross-cutting product features and requests that matter most to customers and open the most pipeline

Own the Architecture & Delivery

• Own the technical architecture and delivery for the vertical's accounts, from scoping through deployment (PaaS and SaaS). Hold the quality bar for performance, security, and maintainability across both the initial build and ongoing change, and lead day-to-day compliant operations.
• Stand up and direct Implementation Delivery Managers (IDMs) on large and strategic accounts.
• Staff accounts based on their complexity, and move your strongest people onto the highest-stakes accounts as they grow.
• Work closely with EPD and core engineering to build solution designs, whether by configuring existing capabilities or developing new ones. Drive last-mile product development where the product doesn't yet do what the mission requires.
• Own the vertical's customer support obligations. Build the process and technology that keep the field-to-product feedback loop running across every account.
• Make sure the vertical's deployments meet Altana's security, risk, and compliance obligations in secured and regulated environments. Partner with Platform Operations on regulated-environment engineering and accreditation, while optimizing for scale and GTM realities.

Lead and Grow

• Own hiring, staffing, and deployment for the vertical's technical delivery team.
• Allocate resources across the vertical's accounts, concentrating technical talent where it matters most. Flag when headcount or product investment isn't matched to opportunity.
• Develop your people through Altana's "capture-ground" model, giving more responsibility as they deliver. Support each person's path, whether that's technical mastery, running an account, or management.
• Hold the technical quality bar, manage performance, and model technical product excellence.
• Carry team culture and hold the team to the operating rhythm and communication standards, starting with our commitment to meeting contractual obligations.

Who You Are

You’ve delivered at the sharp end of the public sector. You’ve led complex technical programs for government — ideally in defence, intelligence, or national security — and you’re at home with mission owners and senior decision-makers, translating fluently between mission language and technical language.

You’re an architect who has also run delivery. You can own a solution architecture across SaaS and regulated environments, and you know the difference between owning the architecture and running the program. You’ve seen delivery-management overhead swallow good engineers, and you’ve built the muscle — and the team structure — to keep both moving.

You build teams and trade up as the mission grows. You staff to complexity, put the right people on the right accounts, and aren’t precious about changing the lineup when the technical bar rises.

You win on technical capability. You’ve turned technical credibility into expansion — surfacing where the platform can unlock new mission value and partnering with commercial to convert it, without needing to own the number yourself.

You operate in secured environments. You’re experienced handling sensitive and classified data, and you understand what it takes to deliver software inside accredited, controlled environments.

You lead through inspiration. You set a high bar, grow the people around you, and bring a team along on hard, ambiguous problems.

Preferred Qualifications

• 12+ years of technical experience spanning enterprise/solution architecture, deployment, and product development, including leading technical teams and complex, customer-facing deployments end-to-end.
• Deep public sector experience, ideally in defence, intelligence, or national security.
• Solution architecture depth across cloud (AWS or Azure), data engineering (Python, SQL, Spark, Databricks), complex system integrations (REST APIs, SSO/SAML), and containerized deployments (Kubernetes, Docker).
• A track record partnering with commercial teams on pre-sales, capture, and expansion — turning clearly-defined customer outcomes into technical product specs and a credible delivery path.
• People-leadership experience: hiring, growing, and holding the bar for a team of technical delivery staff.
• UK-based, with the right to work in the United Kingdom, and able to work on-site with customers as the mission requires.
• Hold, or are eligible and willing to obtain, UK Security Check (SC) clearance - existing SC (or higher, e.g. DV) is a strong plus.

This role is based in the United Kingdom (London) with hybrid work flexibility. Candidates must be within commuting distance of our London hub.

The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process.

Our Values

Our values are the core beliefs that shape who we are, what we stand for, and how we behave.They form the foundation of Altana’s culture and integrity and guide how we hire, design, build, and connect with each other and our customers.

• Trust: Our customers and partners entrust us with missions of the highest importance. We honor that by keeping our word, meeting commitments, and ensuring every action we take reinforces confidence in us. We rely on each other to deliver, to speak openly, and to hold ourselves accountable.
• Resilience: In a world of uncertainty and complexity, our work must withstand challenges, evolve with conditions, and ensure reliability over time. Resilience is both how we operate and what we deliver. It’s how we respond when things don’t go to plan -- we adapt, we support each other, and we keep moving forward.
• Stewardship: We are stewards of every mission we touch. Because our work impacts lives and futures, we hold ourselves accountable to delivering mission impact and never compromising. Our responsibility extends beyond individual projects to the broader system of global trade. We believe that stewardship starts from within so that we can bring focus, creativity, and excellence to our work. Each of us is personally responsible for fostering a workplace where people can thrive. And we are stewards of the greater good of the company. By holding ourselves and each other accountable, we build a culture of innovation and collective success that reflects the scale of our mission.
• Courage: Courage is what unlocks the seemingly impossible for our customers. It’s the core value that drives us make bold moves and take on big, complicated network problems—the ones others avoid. We know success isn't guaranteed, but we have the audacious vision to believe a solution is possible and to build it. Courage fuels our growth mindset. It means embracing challenges that make us stronger, and it’s demonstrated by how we approach hard conversations and complex projects.

At Altana, we believe that a diverse workforce enables greater creativity, performance, and adaptability. We’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer and welcome you to join us as you are. Our employment opportunities and decisions are based on business needs and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, family care or medical leave status, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by the laws or regulations in the areas in which we operate. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type, in any situation.

Offers related to employment at Altana will come from an Altana.ai email address. We will never ask for payment as part of the interview or onboarding process.