Trade Compliance Specialist

About this role

TRADE COMPLIANCE SPECIALIST

Location: Austin, TX or Washington, D.C. (Hybrid on-site, with up to 5% travel)
Clearance Requirement: U.S. Citizen with the ability to obtain a security clearance

ABOUT NODA

NODA is a Veteran-owned, venture-backed technology company that is transforming how unmanned systems collaborate in complex, mission-critical environments. We are developing next-generation solutions that enable the autonomous orchestration of heterogeneous unmanned systems across air, sea, land, and space with vital applications in the defense, intelligence, and commercial sectors.

Our Operations team plays a critical role in ensuring NODA can move quickly, responsibly, and compliantly in a highly regulated defense technology environment. As our products, partnerships, programs, and international activities scale, trade compliance is central to how we develop technology, collaborate with customers and partners, protect controlled information, and execute across the business.

Joining NODA means working on meaningful technology that pushes the boundaries of autonomy alongside a team that thrives on innovation, rapid iteration, and collaboration.

THE ROLE

We are seeking a Trade Compliance Specialist to serve as the day-to-day operational owner for NODA AI's trade compliance activities. You will be responsible for the mechanics that keep our program running: import and export compliance, restricted party screening, licensing administration, jurisdiction and classification, government submissions, training, foreign person and visitor controls, audits, and recordkeeping.

You will work closely with outside export compliance counsel on matters requiring specialised legal or regulatory interpretation and translate that guidance into practical action. You will also partner across Engineering, Business Development, Contracts, the Information System Security Manager (ISSM), Facility Security Officer (FSO), People Operations, and Finance to embed trade compliance into how NODA AI operates rather than treating it as an after-the-fact review.

This role is for someone comfortable operating at the intersection of technology, national security, regulation, and execution. You can move quickly without sacrificing rigour, understand enough about complex technical products to ask the right questions, and bring structure to an environment where requirements and priorities evolve quickly. You know when to independently execute established processes and when a question requires escalation to outside counsel. Most importantly, you are an operator who keeps licenses moving, records audit-ready, employees trained, controlled information protected, and compliance requirements from becoming barriers to execution.

Key Responsibilities

- Perform and document restricted and denied party screening for customers, partners, vendors, visitors, and foreign persons, promptly escalating potential matches, and administer foreign person and visitor compliance requirements including screening, access reviews, DDTC notifications, certifications, and documentation

- Prepare, submit, administer, and track export licenses, agreements, authorizations, and classification requests through US Government systems including DDTC's DECCS and SNAP-R, covering DSP-5 licenses, TAAs, MLAs, commodity jurisdiction and classification requests, and other applicable export authorizations

- Prepare, submit, and track correspondence with the US Department of State and DDTC, including approvals and authorizations related to personnel, foreign person access, technical data, software, defense articles, and other ITAR-controlled activities

- Perform and document jurisdiction and classification analyses for software, source code, technical data, hardware, and integrated systems under the USML and CCL/ECCN frameworks, partnering with Engineering and Product to understand functionality, technical characteristics, end use, and changes that may affect existing determinations

- Administer applicable ITAR exemptions, EAR license exceptions, Technology Control Plans, and Technology Transfer Plans, maintaining accurate records of licenses, agreements, classifications, provisos, exceptions, exemptions, expiration dates, reporting requirements, and continuing obligations

- Partner with the ISSM, FSO, IT, Security, and Engineering to appropriately control and document access to export-controlled information across company systems, development environments, repositories, facilities, and restricted environments

- Support import compliance activities including tariff classification, country-of-origin and customs documentation, and coordination with customs brokers and freight forwarders

- Deliver new-hire, role-specific, and recurring export-control training, maintain completion records, conduct internal audits and self-assessments, document findings, track corrective actions through closure, and support government inquiries, audits, and compliance reviews

- Maintain complete, organised, and audit-ready records for all trade compliance activities, and maintain and continuously improve NODA AI's Export Management and Compliance Program (EMCP) including policies, procedures, forms, checklists, workflows, and recordkeeping practices

- Partner with Contracts, Business Development, Programs, People Operations, and Finance to identify export restrictions, licensing requirements, end-user and end-use considerations, sanctions screening, foreign person reviews, and trade compliance obligations associated with agreements, proposals, customers, and international opportunities

- Coordinate trade compliance reviews for software and technical data releases, technology transfers, international shipments, demonstrations, deployments, and foreign customer engagements before release, access, transfer, or movement, and stay current on regulatory developments to proactively strengthen NODA AI's trade compliance processes as the business scales

…