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Vannevar is a defense technology company building AI to deter our adversaries. In the 21st century conflict moves at algorithmic speed and foresight equals firepower. Our agentic AI is purpose-built to compete with China—from cross-Strait conflict to gray zone coercion. Trained on the most mission-relevant datasets in defense our technology models adversary behavior simulates campaigns and recommends the best course of action to decision makers. Our AI systems are some of the most trusted in the industry and actively used on the front lines of the Indo-Pacific to keep the peace and save lives.
Exceptional technology starts with exceptional people. Vannevar is a small agile team combining world-class engineers with veteran strategists who bring deep expertise in defense and tradecraft. We’re building a company defined by mission impact user empathy and disciplined growth. In just three years we grew from $3M to $80M in ARR achieved early profitability and reached unicorn status—proving that disruption doesn’t require an ego and staying power doesn’t mean standing still.
Vannevar builds new defense capabilities for 21st-century conflict. Our software delivers information dominance and decision advantage—improving targeting accelerating planning and strengthening both homeland defense and Indo-Pacific deterrence.
We’re looking for a talented Software Engineering Manager to lead our Decision Advantage engineering team. This team builds mission-critical intelligence and decision support capabilities to help our partners maintain strategic advantage.
Your team will partner closely with customers mission owners designers product leaders and engineers to build lasting products enabling a wide range of capabilities including analysis of the information environment perception assessment and management capabilities hyper-localized sentiment analysis and tracking strategic indicators and warnings.
This role is ideal for a product-minded engineering leader who can combine strong management fundamentals with deep technical judgment. You’ll help the team move quickly iterate with users and build pragmatic high-impact products for national security missions.
What you’ll do- Product engineering: Lead the Decision Advantage team in designing building and shipping cutting-edge applications services and agents using TypeScript React Tailwind Node.js Python Postgres and AWS.
- Customer and mission partnership: Partner with customers mission owners designers and product teams to understand user workflows and drive concrete outcomes aligned with real-world operator workflows.
- Developer and team acceleration: Reduce friction and duplication across the team by building strong technical patterns reusable services and clear product engineering practices.
- Team leadership: Grow and mentor a high-performing team of full-stack engineers. Foster a strong engineering culture focused on pragmatism velocity ownership and mission impact.
- Cross-functional execution: Collaborate with Design Platform and Product teams to deliver durable reliable software.
- 3+ years of experience leading and building software engineering teams ideally in product engineering AI/ML or related domains.
- 8+ years of professional software development experience with strong technical judgment across full-stack systems.
- Strong product instincts and prior experience working directly with users customers or mission owners to understand workflows collect feedback and ship better solutions.
- Ability to lead teams through ambiguity balancing speed reliability security and mission impact.
- Track record of data-driven decision making - argue with metrics not gut feelings.
- Excellent communication skills cross-functional leadership and project ownership.
- Proficiency with:
- Coding in Python TypeScript or similar
- Postgres or other relational databases.
- Software development in AWS or other cloud services.
- Willingness to travel to off-sites team syncs and customer sites.
- U.S. Citizenship required to access U.S.-only data systems.
- Active security clearance or ability/willingness to obtain one.
- Prior experience building software for defense national security or intelligence use cases.
The salary range for this position is $200000 - $260000 + equity. Within the range individual pay is determined by experience relevant education and/or training.
What We Offer- Health dental and vision insurance
- Remote friendly with WeWork access
- Unlimited PTO shared downtime during the federal holiday calendar and company-wide off time at the end of each year
- 401(k) match
- Lifestyle & wellbeing stipends
- Salary top-up during military reserve duty
- Fully paid parental leave
- Child and pet care reimbursement during travel
We are committed to protecting the privacy of all applicants. Official emails from the company will come from an @vannevarlabs.com domain. Under no circumstances will a legitimate representative from our company contact you to request passwords financial information or other sensitive personal data. Please be vigilant of potential scams.
Skills Required
- 3+ years leading and building software engineering teams
- 8+ years professional software development experience
- Strong product instincts and experience working directly with users/customers/mission owners
- Ability to lead teams through ambiguity while balancing speed reliability security and mission impact
- Track record of data-driven decision making (use metrics)
- Excellent communication skills cross-functional leadership and project ownership
- Proficiency coding in Python TypeScript or similar
- Experience with React Tailwind and Node.js
- Experience with Postgres or other relational databases
- Software development experience in AWS or other cloud services
- Willingness to travel to off-sites team syncs and customer sites
- U.S. Citizenship (required to access U.S.-only data systems)
- Active security clearance or ability/willingness to obtain one
- Prior experience building software for defense national security or intelligence use cases
- Experience in AI/ML product engineering (ideal)
What the Team is Saying
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Vannevar Compensation & Benefits Highlights
- Healthcare Strength—The company highlights “top‑tier” medical dental and vision coverage for full‑time employees. Wellness mental‑health and family‑planning assistance further strengthen health support.
- Parental & Family Support—Fully paid 12 weeks parental leave for all new parents plus an additional 4 weeks for new mothers with flexibility to split time. Monthly caregiving stipends and child/pet‑care support during work travel provide ongoing family help.
- Leave & Time Off Breadth—Unlimited PTO is paired with explicit “no vacation guilt” messaging companywide downtime around federal holidays and a year‑end break. A small vacation stipend is offered to encourage disconnecting.
Vannevar Insights
What We Do
Vannevar combines Silicon Valley innovation with former special operators to build AI for real-world national security outcomes. Since our founding in 2019 Vannevar has deployed its technology across 125 missions safeguarding our service members and improving our country's deterrence.We believe our military service members and intelligence officers deserve access to the best technology American innovation can offer and we are mobilizing frontier technology for this mission. Our founders have 30 years of combined experience across AI labs national security strategy intelligence agencies and special operations. We're supported by a number of leading VCs including Felicis DFJ Growth Point72 Costanoa and General Catalyst. Vannevar is one of the most capital efficient defense tech companies reaching early profitability and becoming a defense tech unicorn in 2024.
Why Work With Us
We pride ourselves on being a team of passionate low-ego professionals who share a commitment to engineering excellence and a genuine concern for the people and AI agents we deliver. Vannevar is a company that truly cares about its people and one of our core principles is "put your wellbeing first".
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Vannevar Offices
Remote Workspace
Employees work remotely.
We are distributed across the map but united by the mission.We go where the mission takes us and deliver where others can’t.Honolulu Seattle San Francisco Washington D.C. New York. You decide what's next.
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