{"id":3917051,"url":"https://alion.io/job/optics11-capture-manager-underwater-security","title":"Capture Manager – Underwater Security","company":{"id":2001460,"name":"Optics11","domain":"optics11.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/optics11","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Recruitee","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":6,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":35,"computed_at":"2026-11-08T05:47:12Z"}},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"senior","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Amsterdam, Netherlands"],"countries":["NL"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-23T14:18:42Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-23","last_verified_at":"2026-11-08T17:47:01Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":16,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":16},"description":"Optics11 is a fast-growing high-tech company based in Amsterdam, developing advanced fiber optic sensing systems for the most demanding environments. Our technology detects the earliest signs of failure in critical assets - from high-voltage energy infrastructure to subsea and defense applications - and gives our customers precise, real-time data they can act on.\nWithin our Underwater Security business we develop sensing technologies that help detect and monitor underwater threats. Our solutions include OptiBarrier, designed for immediate, over-the-horizon threat detection, and OptiArray, our low-power optical thin-line towed array for unmanned underwater vehicles and submarines.\nThe Role\nThe largest defense opportunities are won or lost long before a tender is published. As Capture Manager you will lead our strategic pursuits - large, multinational and partner-driven programmes with navies, ministries of defense, prime contractors and European and NATO procurement - from early identification through to contract award. You will be part of the Bid & Capture Management team within Global Sales and work in shared ownership with our regional Sales Directors, alongside our Bid Managers and Technical Sales team.\nThis is an external-facing role. You understand the customer’s mission, budget and procurement route before the requirement is written, you shape that requirement where you can, you decide who we team with and how we beat the competition, and you set the price-to-win. When a tender is released, you hand a clear capture plan to the Bid Manager, who owns the proposal process, the internal commitment and the price recommendation. You stay on as owner of the win strategy throughout the bid, the orals and the negotiations.\nThe split of roles is deliberate. The Sales Director remains the account owner and the long-term face to the customer in their region. You own the pursuit: the win strategy, the teaming strategy and the path to award on the opportunities that cross borders, run through primes or consortia, or exceed our strategic threshold. The Bid Manager owns the proposal. The Technical Sales Engineer owns the technical dialogue.\nIn your first 6-12 months you will build a qualified portfolio of strategic pursuits, introduce a capture plan and gate review that connect seamlessly to our four-stage bid process, and establish our position with the key primes and programme offices in our markets.\nResponsibilities\nIdentify and qualify strategic pursuits: track national procurement plans, NATO agency programmes and European funding (e.g. EDF, EDIP) to find opportunities 6-24 months ahead, and qualify them together with the Sales Directors against clear go / no-go criteria.\nOwn the capture plan: for each strategic pursuit, define the customer’s needs and decision makers, the procurement route, the competitive landscape, our discriminators and the actions required to win - and keep it current in HubSpot.\nShape the opportunity: engage customers and end users before the tender - through RFI responses, white papers, demonstrations, trials and technical exchanges with Technical Sales - to influence requirements in our favor.\nAnalyze the competition: build competitor profiles, ghost competing solutions and position Optics11’s technology and value proposition accordingly.\nLead teaming and partner strategy: decide whether we bid as prime, subcontractor or consortium member; identify and engage primes, system integrators, partners and local industry; and negotiate NDAs, MoUs and teaming agreements together with Legal.\nSet the price-to-win: develop price-to-win analysis based on customer budget and competitor intelligence, and align it early with the Bid Manager and Finance so the solution can be designed to that price.\nAddress local requirements early: industrial participation and offset, local content, export control constraints and local partner or agent arrangements - so these shape the pursuit rather than surprise the bid.\nDrive the bid / no-bid decision: present the pursuit at the bid / no-bid gate together with the Sales Director and Bid Manager, and hand over a complete capture plan, win themes and customer insight at kick-off.\nOwn the win strategy during the bid: review whether win themes and discriminators land in the proposal, take part in colour-team reviews, lead orals preparation and support the Sales Director in negotiations through to award.\nLearn from every decision: run customer debriefs after award or loss and feed win/loss insight into our capture and bid processes.\nBuild the capture capability: develop our capture playbook, templates and market intelligence sources, and coach Sales Directors on capture best practice.\nWho You Are\nYou think like the customer and act like an owner. You are at ease in a meeting with a navy programme office or a prime’s supply-chain director, and equally at ease challenging your own team on whether we can really win. You know that the best capture work sometimes ends in a well-argued no-bid.\nNice to Have\nExperience in underwater security, sonar, underwater acoustics or naval sensor systems\nBackground in the navy or another defense organization\nShipley or APMP capture training\nExperience with industrial participation/offset and with US or Asia-Pacific defense markets\nWorking knowledge of export control and dual-use licensing\nKnowledge of Dutch and/or another European language (e.g. German, French, Polish or a Nordic language)\nWhat we offer\nJoin one of Europe’s fastest-growing deep-tech scale-ups.\n\nReal impact: your work directly shapes our growth and success.\n\nA great team in an international organisation with colleagues from more than twenty nationalities.\n\nA competitive salary and benefits package.\n\n30 days of holiday per year.\n\nFresh team lunches five times a week, plus regular team activities and company events.\n\nRequirements\nRequirements\nBachelor’s or Master’s degree in engineering, business or a related field, or equivalent experience\n8+ years of experience in defense business development, capture or sales of complex systems, with a track record of winning large international programmes\nSolid understanding of defense procurement: national MoD and naval procurement, NATO agencies (e.g. NSPA, NCIA), European programmes (EDA, EDF, EDIP) and bids via prime contractors\nExperience building teaming arrangements and consortia with primes, system integrators and partners\nExperience with price-to-win and competitive analysis\nAn existing network in naval, maritime or defense communities in Europe; a network beyond Europe is a strong plus\nExcellent command of English, written and spoken; able to present convincingly to senior military, government and industry stakeholders\nStrategic thinker with a hands-on attitude; comfortable owning a pursuit without formal authority over the people who contribute to it\nWillingness to travel frequently\nScreening\nYou will work with clients in the defense and security sectors. Obtaining a Certificate of No Objection issued by the AIVD, the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service, is mandatory. This means you will need to undergo a security screening. We will explain the process and guide you through the applicable requirements.","description_format":"text","description_chars":7230,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"Polish","level":"All levels","optional":true},{"language":"Dutch","level":"All levels","optional":false},{"language":"English","level":"All levels","optional":false}]},"benefits":["Company events"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Sensors & Transducers","Optics & Photonic Components"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-07T13:09:43Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":80,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.893,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":15,"expected_fill_days":35,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:mid"],"computed_at":"2026-11-08T05:47:12Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/optics11-capture-manager-underwater-security","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/optics11-capture-manager-underwater-security.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-08T21:10:50Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":44211,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-09T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":2001460},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=2001460"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Foptics11-capture-manager-underwater-security"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Foptics11-capture-manager-underwater-security"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Foptics11-capture-manager-underwater-security"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/optics11-capture-manager-underwater-security\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Foptics11-capture-manager-underwater-security"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3917051}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"optics11.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3917051},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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