Manager, Social Media & Strategic Communications

Why Castelion, Why Now Castelion is moving incredibly fast to develop and deliver advanced defense systems at a time when execution matters more than ever. We believe focus, ownership, and excellence are decisive advantages - and we're building a world-class team to turn bold ideas into real capability. This is a rare opportunity to join at an early stage, where you'll have significant ownership, collaborate with exceptional teammates, and make a direct, measurable impact on our mission and the future of the company - regardless of your function. Manager, Social Media & Strategic Communications Castelion is building next-generation strike systems to restore credible deterrence and expand the industrial base to strengthen U.S. national security. We are looking for an innovative communicator as a Manager, Social Media & Strategic Communications to lead Castelion's presence and voice across social media channels. This role is responsible for turning Castelion's mission, technology, milestones, leadership perspective, and culture into high-impact content for defense, aerospace, policy, technology, investor, and talent audiences. The right candidate not only understands how to build momentum on LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Instagram, and emerging platforms, but is an innovative leader in this space. The best candidate can also maintain the judgment required to communicate in a national-security environment. You will work closely with company leadership, engineering, business development, recruiting, legal, security, and communications to shape social-first narratives around hypersonic systems, advanced effects, missile defense, defense manufacturing, and emerging national-security technologies. This is a hands-on role for a sharp writer, fast operator, and high-judgment communicator who can move from strategy to execution quickly. The best candidate will be comfortable writing under deadline, building a content calendar, spotting timely narrative opportunities, working with technical stakeholders, and knowing when not to post. Responsibilities • Develop, execute, and own Castelion's social media strategy across social channels, including X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and other priority platforms. • Plan the editorial calendar for company channels, including announcements, milestones, recruiting content, executive perspective, industry commentary, event coverage, and evergreen brand storytelling. • Draft, edit, schedule, and publish social content that is technically accurate, visually compelling, and appropriate for defense, policy, customer, investor, and talent audiences. • Build social-first campaigns around major company announcements, product milestones, test activity, launch activity, executive appearances, industry events, and recruiting priorities. • Partner with creative, design, video, engineering, and recruiting teams to develop visual assets, short-form video concepts, carousels, explainers, and behind-the-scenes content. • Support executive social presence, including drafting posts, shaping point of view, identifying timely moments, and translating leadership perspective into credible public commentary. • Monitor defense, aerospace, technology, policy, competitor, and geopolitical conversations to identify relevant moments for Castelion to engage or avoid. • Produce concise daily executive media and social brief summarizing relevant coverage, industry developments, competitor activity, social conversation, geopolitical events, and emerging narratives. • Track channel performance, audience growth, engagement, sentiment, and campaign results, then use those insights to improve content strategy. • Manage community engagement, comment monitoring, inbound message routing, and escalation workflows. • Support media strategy for announcements and high-visibility moments, including drafting press materials, talking points, briefing notes, media pitches, and social amplification plans. • Help identify high-quality podcasts, interviews, conferences, speaking opportunities, and other visibility moments for company leadership • Support rapid-response communications and issue management with discretion, accuracy, and sound judgment. • Maintain consistency of Castelion's external voice, messaging, terminology, and narrative across social, press, web, recruiting, and executive channels. • Coordinate with legal, security, engineering, and business stakeholders to ensure communications meet OPSEC, export-control, customer-sensitivity, and technical-accuracy standards. • Staying ahead of ever-changing platform algorithms, feature updates, and best practices across our existing platforms. • Strong understanding of platform-specific creative requirements, including image dimensions, video specifications, aspect ratios, safe zones, and publishing best practices. Basic Qualifications • 4-7 years of experience in social media, strategic communications, public affairs, journalism, defense communications, technology communications, or a related field. • Demonstrated experience managing brand, founder, executive, or organizational social channels, especially LinkedIn and X. • Exceptional writing and editing skills, with the ability to craft concise, compelling content under tight deadlines, • Strong fluency of social media strategy, latest trends, audience engagement, social listening, and performance analytics to iterate and constantly improve. • Ability to translate technical or complex subject matter into clear, accurate, engaging messaging. • Clear judgment and discretion under pressure, especially in sensitive or high-visibility communications environments. • Ability to work directly with senior executives, engineers, military leaders, policymakers, and external partners with professionalism and confidence. • Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple fast-moving priorities simultaneously. • Interest in U.S. national security, defense innovation, aerospace, manufacturing, and emerging technologies. • Willingness to travel as needed for events, media opportunities, launches, tests, and industry conferences. Preferred Skills and Experience • Experience in defense, aerospace, government, Capitol Hill, journalism, public affairs, venture-backed technology, or dual-use technology. • Experience building or managing executive social media programs. • Experience using social listening, analytics, scheduling, or reporting tools. • Experience supporting product launches, test campaigns, major announcements, conferences, or recruiting campaigns. • Familiarity with defense acquisition, Pentagon structure, national-security policy, venture-backed technology environments, or dual-use technology sectors. • Relationships with defense, aerospace, technology, policy, business, podcast, or creator-media communities. • Experience with crisis communications, rapid response, or sensitive issue management. • Comfort working with creative teams on photography, video, motion graphics, and visual storytelling. • Familiarity with OPSEC, export-control considerations, classification boundaries, or communications review processes in defense or aerospace environments. Castelion offers a generous benefits package. Please refer to the bottom of our Careers page for more details. Other Duties Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice. Additional Eligibility Requirements This position may require access to classified information or restricted U.S. Government sites, systems, or information, as determined by the Company and/or applicable U.S. Government requirements. If the position is so designated, your employment in the role may be contingent upon your ability to obtain and maintain the required U.S. Governme