Across our government-focused searches this quarter, the same pattern keeps surfacing. A space company needs someone who can sell to DARPA, the Space Force, or the DoD. They write a strong job description, set a competitive-looking salary, and start the search. Three months later, they’ve either hired the wrong person or they haven’t hired anyone at all.
The government BD and sales market in space is one of the most misunderstood hiring challenges in the sector. And the mistakes companies make are consistent enough to be worth naming.
The Adjacent Industry Trap
The most common mistake is hiring someone from a neighboring sector – government IT, cyber, or traditional defense contracting – and expecting them to sell space.
On paper, these candidates look right. They’ve sold to the same agencies. They understand the procurement process. They know how government contracting works. But what they don’t have is context for how space programs are structured, how the contracts differ, and how relationships in the space community operate.
What we see across our client base is that these hires tend to last six to twelve months. The person comes in, struggles to build traction because they don’t understand the industry dynamics, and is eventually let go. The company then restarts the search – having lost time, budget, and credibility with the candidates who were watching.
The industry experience piece isn’t a nice-to-have at this level. A VP of Business Development who has successfully closed contracts with the Space Systems Command or built a pipeline through Congressional relationships brings a network and an understanding that cannot be replicated by someone who sold cybersecurity solutions to the same agencies.
The Compensation Disconnect
The second pattern is underpricing the role. Government BD and sales talent in space is expensive. These are people who, if they’re performing, are directly responsible for contract wins worth millions. They know their value, and they’re often already in roles where their compensation reflects it.
When a company sets compensation at $200,000 for a role that the market prices at $240,000 to $250,000, they’re not saving money. They’re filtering out the people they actually want. The candidates who accept the lower number tend to be the ones who couldn’t command the higher one – and the search ends up where it started, with an underperforming hire and a reopened role.
The math on this is straightforward. If the person you’re hiring is expected to close deals worth $10 million or more, the difference between the right candidate and the wrong one is measured in contract wins, not salary savings.
The Equity Gap
There’s a third factor that’s increasingly shaping outcomes at this level: equity.
Mid-career to senior BD candidates – particularly those in the 30 to 45 age range – are weighing long-term upside against short-term compensation more carefully than they were two years ago. They’ve watched companies in the sector go from Series A to IPO. They want to be part of that trajectory, and equity is how they participate.
The problem arises when a company wants to offer equity but can’t get internal sign-off. We’ve seen two offers declined in the last three months specifically because the company couldn’t deliver on an equity component. In both cases, the US hiring manager understood the market reality, but approval had to come from a European parent company’s global leadership — and the timeline simply didn’t match the candidate’s decision window.
For companies where equity is structurally difficult to offer – whether due to corporate structure, board restrictions, or international complexity – this needs to be identified and addressed before the search begins, not after the preferred candidate is already evaluating an offer.
The Takeaway
Government sales hiring in space is niche within a niche. The candidate pool is small, the experience requirements are specific, and the best people are rarely looking. Companies that approach this hire the same way they’d approach a commercial sales search – broad job descriptions, mid-market compensation, and a reactive sourcing strategy – will consistently end up with the wrong person or no person at all.
The companies that get it right are the ones that accept the timeline, price the role accurately, and understand that in this market, the story you tell about the opportunity matters as much as the offer itself. The best candidates in government BD aren’t moving for a salary bump. They’re moving for a company they believe will win.