| 🌿 The Sweet Spot |
Vol. 1 · Issue 014
Monday, September 21, 2026 |
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| Pivot With Purpose · Career strategy · Macro clarity · MyrtusHQ Career Signal · Follow the Problem |
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This week in The Sweet Spot
Follow the Problem.
Some of the biggest career opportunities are hiding inside problems that have not been solved yet. This week I came home from the Defense TechConnect Innovation Summit thinking about four key areas.
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This week's compass
When a technology becomes easier to deploy, look at the industries being created to manage its consequences. That is where the next career map is forming.
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Section 01
Look Where the Problem Is Getting Harder
Four areas that stayed with me after several days of conversations, presentations and walking the expo floor.
Defense TechConnect was built around connecting government, industry, investors, universities and emerging technology companies, with dedicated programming for small businesses and SBIR/STTR pathways. The event highlighted autonomy, AI, cybersecurity, energy and infrastructure, medical and biosecurity, advanced manufacturing, sensors and electronics but it was the small businesses, often building in spaces that don't receive the same attention as the primes or billion-dollar programs that kept catching my attention. There is an enormous amount of opportunity sitting underneath national-security problems that still need solutions.
01 · COUNTER-DRONE
The problem is getting harder because the technology is getting cheaper.
Drones are cheaper, more accessible, more autonomous and more sophisticated. That means the counter-drone problem grows with them. The opportunity is not simply to build another drone, it may be detection, tracking, electronic warfare, communications, sensors, software, interdiction, power systems, materials, or something nobody has thought of yet. The career lesson is broader: when a technology becomes easier to deploy, look at the industries forming around its consequences.
02 · AI + CYBER
Cybersecurity is no longer confined to the IT department.
What happens when AI increases the speed of reconnaissance, social engineering, vulnerability discovery or attacks against people and organizations carrying out sensitive missions and those attacks reach physical systems? This week's Sturnella Signals highlighted new federal guidance on third-party industrial-control-system integrators who may install equipment, maintain devices and retain access to operational environments. If your experience touches engineering, manufacturing, infrastructure, supply chains, operations or autonomy, the question may not be whether you need to become a cybersecurity professional. It may be: what does cybersecurity mean inside the work I already know how to do?
03 · BIOLOGICAL SURVEILLANCE
How do you detect a threat you do not yet know to look for?
That creates an entirely different problem and a large ecosystem forming around it: sensors, diagnostics, data analytics, AI, environmental monitoring, genomics, manufacturing, supply chains and emergency response. Defense TechConnect included medical and biosecurity among its core areas, co-located with a Bioeconomy Summit focused on building, financing and deploying bioindustrial capacity. You do not need to be a biologist to notice the size of what is forming. People will build the sensors, manufacture them, secure and analyze the data, build the infrastructure, navigate procurement and turn research into something deployable.
04 · AUTONOMY
Not just autonomous vehicles but autonomous everything.
Autonomous logistics, collaborative systems, robotics, decision support, resilient communications, navigation, industrial automation, systems that continue operating where people, connectivity or infrastructure are limited. One Defense TechConnect session focused specifically on how smaller firms are shaping AI and autonomous systems, emphasizing that defense autonomy needs to be resilient, trusted and verifiable where failure has very different consequences. This is exactly the kind of area where you should resist asking "Do I have the right background?" and ask instead: "What part of this problem already overlaps with something I know?"
Careers rarely change because we perfectly predicted the future. They change because we noticed something interesting and moved a little closer to it.
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Section 02
The Signal From Sturnella
Follow the money one layer downstream.
One of the patterns I keep seeing in Sturnella Signals is that government investment rarely creates opportunity only for the organization receiving the headline award. The money keeps moving.
SIGNAL 01 · DOWNSTREAM DEMAND
The career opportunity is frequently one layer below the headline.
This week, approximately $230 million in Defense Community Infrastructure Program grants went toward projects supporting military installations: water, wastewater, rail, transportation and other infrastructure. Those awards then create demand for engineering, construction, utilities, cybersecurity, testing, project management and specialty contractors. You may not work for the organization receiving the billion-dollar investment. You may work for the company that designs, builds, secures, maintains, tests or supplies something it needs.
SIGNAL 02 · THE PATTERN IS REPEATING
Critical minerals, agriculture and defense are all moving the same direction.
Critical-minerals capital is moving beyond deposits and toward processing, recycling, separation, manufacturing and secure access to usable material. Agriculture is seeing capital move into processing, storage, automation, AgTech and supply-chain infrastructure. The career map keeps widening in the same way: follow the award downstream, then find the layer where your skills fit.
Follow the award downstream.
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Section 03
The 1-Pomodoro Career Map
Don't begin with job titles. Begin with problems + funding + geography.
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Pick one signal. Counter-drone. AI + cyber. Biological surveillance. Autonomy. Or another national-security problem you keep noticing. Don't worry about whether you're qualified just pick the one that makes you want to know more. |
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Trace the money. Federal investment announcements. SBIR/STTR awards. State economic-development projects. Manufacturing investments. University research centers. And the Department of War's industrial-base investment map at businessdefense.gov/investments. Look at your own state, then one neighboring state. Ask: what is being built here? |
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Search the surrounding ecosystem. Don't just type the obvious title. If you picked autonomy, don't only search autonomy engineer. Search program manager, supply chain, cybersecurity, manufacturing, business development, systems engineering, compliance, procurement, data, operations, testing, project management, finance. There are usually far more ways into a growing industry than its most visible technical role. |
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Find the gap. Look at ten job descriptions. What keeps appearing a certification, a technology, a government-acquisition skill, manufacturing experience, a security clearance, program management? Compare that list with your background. You are looking for the smallest bridge between where you are and where the market is going. |
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Choose one move. Take the introductory course. Attend the industry event. Join the association. Read the program documentation. Follow five companies. Talk to someone already doing the work. Apply for one role. One step is enough. The objective is not to make a career decision it is to make your career map larger. |
Capital often tells you where future jobs, suppliers and expertise will be needed before the job postings make it obvious.
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Section 04
AI That Helps
Take the research you just did and expand the map.
Start with what you found in the Pomodoro:
"I am looking at opportunities in [counter-UAS / autonomy / biosecurity / AI + cyber] in [state or metro area]. My background is in [your experience]. These are the organizations, investments and job descriptions I have found. What adjacent opportunities am I probably missing?"
Then go deeper:
"What should I study over the next six months if I want to become more credible in this area?"
Then widen the circle:
"What kinds of people should I meet not specific individuals, but roles, professional associations, research groups, companies and communities?"
And finally, the most important one:
"Which parts of my existing experience transfer directly into this field, and which gaps actually matter?"
That last question matters because when people explore a new industry, they focus entirely on what they don't know. AI can be useful for identifying what you already know that may travel surprisingly well.
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Section 05
Recharge
Sometimes seeing a new path requires giving your brain something genuinely new to see.
🎨 THE DARE: GO LOOK AT SOMETHING SOMEONE ELSE MADE
Put your phone away. Not in your pocket where you will check it seventeen times. Away. Then go somewhere you can look at art. A museum, a free gallery, a sculpture garden, a university exhibition, a public-art installation, or a park with one sculpture you have never really stopped to look at.
Choose one piece. Spend a few minutes with it. Do not photograph it. Do not Google the artist. Just look. Then ask yourself: what was this person thinking when they made this? What was happening in their life? Where were they living? What were they trying to communicate? What did they see that someone else might not have seen?
Try, for a few minutes, to leave your own perspective and enter theirs.
Not another career article. Not another LinkedIn post. Another person's way of looking at the world.
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Your Practice
One Small Assignment
01 Choose one problem that interests you.
02 Find where money is moving around it.
03 Search ten jobs connected to that ecosystem.
04 Identify one capability you could build.
05 Find one person or community that can help you understand the field.
06 Take one small step toward it then go look at some art.
Follow the problem. Follow the funding. Then see where you fit.
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THE SWEET SPOT
Read the signal · Find your position · Move with purpose
myrtushq.com
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Sturnella Signals
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Myrtus
Career insights for people who want to pivot with purpose.
This newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, accounting, or cybersecurity advice. Market information is time-sensitive and may change after publication.
myrtushq.com
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